


when eden was lost

by luxetnox



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, alfred | deco ren, bardolph | jus ren, bast straight up does not have a good time for an entire au, bastille | ani ren, chevalier | muta ren, hazel "fite me" caelum, imperia | sacra ren, in this house we love the knights of ren, madi loses her mind on main 2k19, roman | feru ren, space soap opera intensifies, versailles | victa ren
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-23
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2020-05-18 12:21:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 33,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19334440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luxetnox/pseuds/luxetnox
Summary: be like the love that discovered the sinthat freed the first man and will do so againbe that hopeful feeling when eden was lostit's been deaf to our laughter since the master was crossedwhich side of the wall really suffers that cost?oh, lover, be good to me





	1. Chapter 1

Hazel is 19 years old and her life is already over. 

Distantly, she wonders if she will get a chance in whatever  _beyond_ there is to reflect on how kriffing irritating that is; if she'll get to question how exactly she ended up in the mess that she is in presently, if she'll be able to pinpoint the exact moment Fate designed to ruin her, or even if she ever even had a  _life_ to begin with. Surely she will have a chance to ask herself just how she, of all people, found herself running away from _First Order soldiers_ with a kriffing wanted _droid_ and a mousy haired stranger. Surely. The fleeting thoughts are just that, however, because right now she just  _doesn't have time for it._

" _Hurry up!_ " she yells over her shoulder, darting around another tight corner of the junkyard and taking off at a sprint across the flat, dry Jakku sand. Dust flies up around her as her feet pound the packed ground, her heart racing, and she can't tell if the boy is following her or not but she can hear the distinct whir of BB-8 rolling behind her, beeping in a shrill tempo. They have absolutely no cover out here, she knows, and they need to get to her AT-AT before the First Order catches up, or before they call in—

The ground  _shakes_ as blasts hit the desert floor, and Hazel hears the boy shriek somewhere behind her even as her own heart leaps into her throat and she stumbles a step. He slams into her back, forcing her forward, and Hazel fumbles to keep running, darting an anxious glance up at the sky. 

_Kriff, kriff, kriff!_

There are  _so many of them_ , TIE fighters swarming the sky above, and she has no idea how they are going to get to the ship in time. Another blast slams into the ground far too close to her and Hazel swerves, shouting, "We have to go right! That way, that way!" 

She is pointing, waving her hand urgently so that BB-8 and the boy hear her over the firing ships, when the wreckage she had spotted suddenly explodes. Sliding to a messy halt, Hazel gapes and then swings around, running to the left instead as she yells in a panic, "Nevermind! We've got to fall back!"

"There's no where to go back there!" he yells in protest, but she can hear his feet slamming after her, hear BB-8 beeping rapidly somewhere off to the left, and she is trying so hard to just keep her eyes forward and her body moving but his words are settling in and the panic is gripping tighter with the realization that there really is  _no where_ to go now—

There is an explosion up above and Hazel jerks her head up with a gasp, sliding to an abrupt stop in the sand as a TIE fighter crashes and burns in the distance, and then another one, and another. The boy stops next to her, panting, and they watch in disbelief as an old Corellian light freighter arcs through the sky, shooting down the First Order ships as they scramble to reform. 

BB-8 beeps excitedly, rolling in rapid circles around them, but Hazel can just gape, mouth open, until her sense of self-preservation kicks in again and she grasps at the boy's sleeve. "Let's go! Now! While they're busy, go, go!"

She yanks at him and starts running again, and after a moment he follows, BB-8 whirling at her side. Out of the corner of her eye she sees the freighter swoop, striking down another fighter before it can give chase, and then she is turning her head to watch in awe as it starts to bank down towards the Jakku desert. 

"Is it  _landing_ _?_ " she yells, but then BB-8 is shooting away from them, rolling rapidly in the direction of the ship as it starts to settle in the dust, letting out a series of shrill beeps. "BB-8!"

"I'm with the droid!" the boy yells, taking off after the spinning ball of white and orange, and Hazel hesitates for just a second before veering off to give chase. Any ship that is shooting down their enemies has to be better than nothing, right? Right. Survival now, specifics later. 

The ramp is already lowering by the time they catch up with BB-8, and suddenly there is another guy standing in the opening waving at them desperately, yelling, "BB-8! Atty! You've alive! Let's go, let's go!" 

" _Cass_ _!_ " the boy — Atty — yells, and goes careening up the ramp after the droid, and Hazel has a split second to question the unbelievable luck that  _Cassel Dameron_ was not only alive but actually found them, and then she is slamming up the ramp and flying into the haul of the freighter.

"Let's move, Shay!" the pilot yells, and they are rocking forward and upwards then. Hazel bends over, struggling to breathe as her heart races, and catches Atty throwing his arm around Cassel in excitement before her. She is still trying to convince herself this is real when Cassel exclaims, "Buddy! Man, am I glad to see you!"

"That was some save," Atty laughs, equally as breathless as he embraces Cassel briefly, the boys slapping one another on the back. 

"Yeah," Hazel finally exhales, straightening, "Yeah, thank you, that was— that was amazing—"

The freighter suddenly rocks, and someone is yelling from above, "Cass, get your ass up here! We've got company!"

"Let's go," Cassel says, releasing Atty and taking off in the general direction of the voice. Hazel stares after him, but BB-8 and Atty are already moving to follow, so she sees little choice but to go with them. She's barely caught her breath when they come to stand on the threshold of the cockpit, Cassel having disappeared once more, and suddenly she is losing it all again in a gasp when she gets a good look outside. 

They're  _flying._

Logically, she knew that they must be flying, but  _seeing_ it is breathtaking: the Jakku desert shoots past, and then all at once there is the sky, and the flashing bursts of TIE fighters exploding as Cassel shoots them down, and it is dizzying and horrifying and  _so much_ —

"Hold on, ladies," someone calls from far too close, and Hazel jerks, realizing with a jolt that Atty has slid into the seat to her left and that there is a woman in the pilot's seat to her right, blonde hair flying as she leans forward to start flipping switches rapidly, "We're getting away from this dustbowl in 3, 2—" She shoves down a lever, and Hazel has a moment of panic where her stomach drops just before the woman yells, " _Here we go!_ "

There is a single moment of suspense, where everything seems to freeze and hang in balance, and then they are  _lurching_ forward, the Jakku sky disappearing into a blur of streaming blue and black. Hazel  _stares_ , her mouth open, and forgets all about droids and TIE fighters trying to shoot her and strange rescues from strange people for several moments. 

She's never seen the galaxy before. 

 "So, who are you kids?" the woman suddenly asks, shaking Hazel out of her revere, and she turns to see that their pilot has twisted in her seat to get a good look at her and Atty. Her eyes are shockingly blue, crinkled with a bemused smile, and she reaches to tuck a strand of wild blonde hair behind her ear as she looks them up and down. "You don't look like Resistance."

"Atty busted me out of the _Finalizer_ ," Cassel announces from behind them, having come back up from the gunner's seat, and Hazel has a chance to  _really_ look at him now: warm caramel skin, laughing dark brown eyes, and curly brown hair. He is boyish and friendly, grinning at Atty as he says, "He's Resistance now, alright. Pretty good shot, too. Hey, is that my jacket?"

"Oh—" Atty starts, his hands going to the Resistance pilot jacket as if to shrug it off, but Cassel stops him with a raised hand and a cheerful, "No, keep it, it looks good." 

"And how about you?" the woman asks, sounding amused, and Hazel pulls her attention away from the boys, relieved for some reason. Their easy familiarity was almost embarrassing, though she couldn't say why. 

They are still chattering back and forth when she shrugs, offering, "I'm Hazel. I just found BB-8, and then Atty found us, and, well... Here I am."

"Here you are," the woman agrees, grinning at her good-naturedly, "Don't worry, kid. People tend to have a way of just ending up on the _Falcon_."

Hazel nods, absently, already thinking about how exactly she's going to get  _off_ this freighter, but then her thoughts backtrack and she is blinking, stunned. "Wait— the  _Falcon_? Like,  _the_ _Millennium Falcon_? Oh my god. This is the  _Falcon_!" A realization, and she jolts with a new thrill. "You're— You're  _Shay Hart!_ "

"The Rebel hero?" Atty pipes up, sounding curious, but Hazel scoffs, " _No_ , the smuggler!"

Shay Hart shakes her head, grinning at them, and says, "That's me, kiddo. Not much of a hero these days, but smuggling..." The blonde gives a roguish grin that is everything that Hazel imaged infamous scoundrel  _Shay Hart_ would be, and adds, "Well, I might know a thing or two about that, still."

"She's even smuggling the map to Dahlia Coutier now," Cass chips in, sounding smug, and Hazel suddenly remembers why they had been chased to begin with and is star-struck all over again. She is on the  _Millennium Falcon_ , talking to  _Shay Hart_ about tracking down  _Dahlia Coutier._  It does not feel real. It possibly isn't.

"Hey! So you got it, then? Nice work, Cass. Marg is gonna be thrilled," Shay says, nodding, and leans back in her chair as she continues, "We'll be with the fleet in no time."

Hazel freezes, and it is like ice water trickling down her spine: all of the excitement and thrill of the bizarre world she has stepped into vanishes, replaced by the firm reminder that she has left Jakku and she needs to get back. Sooner rather than later. "Wait, I can't just... I need to get back."

" _To Jakku?_ " Atty asks, sounding incredulous, at the same moment that Cassel choruses, "What, no!" Shay, for her part, is silent, just looking at Hazel curiously. 

Hazel blinks at the boys, taking a second to wonder if they want her to  _stay_ , and how they could possibly — she has known them for less than an hour, and besides, she has to get back. She has to wait for her family. "I have to. I can't leave Jakku, or they might not..." 

She trails off, suddenly reluctant to say anything more, and curls her fingers into fists against her palms. Her chest aches with something foreign, and the pressure increases when she sees the looks on Atty and Cassel's faces, the budding disappointment. 

 _How?_ she wonders, at a loss,  _How can you care?_

"I need to get back to Jakku," she says, firmer, and looks away from their eyes to Shay, hoping for some form of escape. Shay looks back at her, thoughtful, her face otherwise unreadable, and then she softens. 

"We'll get you back to Jakku, then," Shay promises, and Hazel feels her chest loosen. "But we can't get back there right now, kiddo. We've got to get this map to the Resistance, and even if we weren't a bit pressed, those fighters are going to be swarming that junkyard for a while in case you come back. It's not safe there."

Hazel bites down on the inside of her cheek, worrying it between her teeth, and stares back at Shay in silence. Her eyes are kind, and understanding, and it doesn't  _feel_ like a lie. It makes sense, what she says. It makes Hazel panic a little, the realization that she can't go back, but she clamps down on the racing of her heart and nods instead.  _Soon. I'll be back soon._

"Okay," she says, quietly, and shoots a glance at Atty and Cassel. They both look away, obviously trying to hide the fact that they've been staring, but Hazel is just quietly relieved that they aren't saying anything or asking her to explain. She doesn't think she's ready to have to  _tell someone_. She's not sure that they deserve to know, anyway. It's no one's business but hers. 

There is a moment of silence, and Hazel lets her gaze drift back out to the window once more. After a beat, Shay says, " _Well_ , we'll be in hyperspace for a bit, so why don't you kids go get some rest? You've had quite a time."

"That'd be great," Atty says, sounding relieved, and Hazel has to admit that she is  _exhausted_. She nods as Atty moves to get up, but she stops short when she realizes that Cassel isn't moving and that he is in her way. 

"Sorry," the pilot says, smiling at her briefly, and then he slips past Atty to claim the freed up co-pilot's seat. "Actually, Shay, I wanted to talk to you about the _Finalizer_ and... uh, Ani." 

Shay goes still, and Hazel frowns slightly, glancing between them curiously, but Atty has grasped ahold of her wrist and is pulling her down the hall. She jerks at the contact and pulls free uncomfortably, rubbing at her wrist briefly, and Atty murmurs an apology, gesturing towards the crew's bunks. Hazel follows without protest, putting the Resistance and their problems behind her as she thinks about the sleep that awaits. 

Kriff, is she tired. 

—

Deep in the pits of the  _Finalizer_ , the Supreme Leader's visage flickers and wavers as the holoprojection shudders. He is deathly still, despite the faint ripples across the surface of the illusion, his wrinkled mouth flat and unamused as he stares down at the two warlords standing before the platform. 

"Supreme Leader, I take full responsibility for the—" General Hux is saying, his voice urgent and oh so eager to please, and Ani Ren resists the urge to roll his eyes. He suddenly regrets not wearing his helm, if only because he is forced to keep a straight face while Hux speaks. And speaks. And  _speaks._

Up until Snoke cuts him off, saying shortly, "General. Our strategy must now change."

"Of course," Hux agrees immediately, only briefly vexed to be cut short, "Reconditioning for his whole class. The squadron, too. I will not have any more traitors in my ranks, and we  _will_ find AT-5365. And soon, we will have the weapon. Preparation is moving ahead as planned."

"Good. Go," the Supreme Leader says, his tone brokering no argument, and General Hux snaps a quick salute before whirling around sharply on his heels and striding down the long corridor. He does not turn his head towards Ani Ren as he goes. 

 _Good riddance_ , Ani thinks, dismissive, and then he schools his features into ice when he feels Snoke's attention shift more fully to him. There is silence for a moment, then a prickle of displeasure taints the air around them, thick in the Force. 

"You should be wearing your mask," Snoke says slowly, his voice edged with disapproval. 

Ani nods once, and doesn't raise his eyes from the Supreme Leader's shoulder. "Yes, master. I will retrieve it when you are finished."

There is a still moment where Ani can feel the Supreme Leader deciding if he will accept that, and then he does, evidently more interested in what he really brought Ani here for. "There has been an awakening. Have you felt it?"

He did. It had been a quiet thing, a gentle ripple at the edges of his consciousness, nagging for his attention; Ani Ren had studiously ignored it, and in fact is  _still_ studiously ignoring it. It glimmers like a speck of gold when he closes his eyes, distracting and irritating, and so he just does his best to pretend not to see it. "Yes."

"There's something more," Snoke continues after a moment, choosing not to expand on his observation, and Ani clamps down on a flicker of irritation before it can skitter across the Supreme Leader's awareness. It is far too like Snoke to bait him and then change the subject. 

A beat. Ani Ren waits, silent, and then Snoke announces, "The droid we seek is aboard the _Millennium Falcon._  It would appear as if your mother, Shay Hart, has it." 

Ani Ren does not move, his expression flat, and the tight grip he keeps over his emotions tightens. He refuses to react, and Snoke, apparently bored by his lack of response, continues in a bemused tone, "Or shall I say, your aunt?"

There is a lulling taunt there, a blatant dig at old wounds, and Ani clenches his jaw for a moment before he says, frostily, "She means nothing to me."

"Even you, Master of the Knights of Ren, have never faced such a test," Snoke continues as if Ani had not spoken, making a soft noise of consideration, "I fear that you might not be ready for it."

Ani Ren stiffens, feeling the latent threat that hangs over his words, the creeping impression that filters in the air around him. There is blood in the water. "By the grace of your training, I am ready for whatever task you give me, master." 

"We shall see," Snoke says after a moment, but he sounds pleased, and Ani can feel the flicker of smug satisfaction in his words. He nods once, and continues, "Go now. Gather your Knights, and find that droid."

Ani Ren nods, and turns to go without another word. He feels Snoke's gaze trail him until he is out of the assembly room, and then he is in the corridor and alone once more. He exhales slowly, once, before turning sharply to stride down the hall, refusing to slow his steps until he is several floors higher and approaching the training room. There is no one there, not even guards; no one to see the way he pauses and clenches his fists a few times before rolling his shoulders back and stepping inside. 

Victa Ren and Feru Ren are sparring when he enters, whirling across the open floor in a blur, and for a moment he just stands back to watch. Victa is wielding her tonfas, twin blades flashing in quick upwards slashes to counter the onslaught of heavy-handed blows that Feru is raining down from above. For a moment they continue across the floor like that, with Feru advancing and hacking away with wild abandon while Victa catches each blow and shoves back. 

Then, just when Victa is reaching the edge of the mat, she catches one of Feru's strikes against both of her blades, her elbows out high as she braces against him, and Ani feels a  _shift_ — 

Victa shoves, hard, throwing all of her weight into the thrust, and she throws the Force behind it, too. A wave of it slams into Feru and the boy is suddenly sailing backwards, slamming against the opposite wall in a blur of black, his saber flying. 

Feru slides into a heap, and Victa straightens. There is a smattering of applause then, and Ani Ren drops his gaze to where the rest of his Knights are sprawled on the floor at the edge of the mats, spectating. Not one of them is wearing their helm. 

"Atta girl, Victa," Muta Ren says, grinning up at her crookedly as he leans back on one hand, "Put that little shit in his place." 

Feru is rising now, pushing himself to his feet, and Ani catches a glimpse of the look on his face: dark and furious, his black eyes locked on Victa as she skips across the training floor to the other Knights, obvious. There is something snarling there, a cornered animal raging for vengeance, and Ani says, evenly, "Feru."

The younger boy's head snaps up, and he blinks across the room at Ani. He looks even paler than usual, narrow face thin and the shadows beneath his eyes more pronounced, but something about him perks up at the sight of Ani. Straightening, Feru crosses towards him, that feral edge disappearing. 

"Master," the boy rasps, coming to a stop, and Ani nods at him. He sets a hand on Feru's shoulder, and glances to where the others have turned towards them, Victa looking pleased and the elder Knights offering various greetings. 

"Easy, Feru," he says lowly, just for the boy, and tightens his grip on the Knight's shoulder. He waits until he sees Feru nod out of the corner of his eye, and then he releases him, stepping towards the others. 

"You're getting better with your timing," he tells Victa, and she  _glows_ up at him, biting her lower lip in the way that she does when she is trying to stop herself from beaming. Ani arches a brow, not smiling back, and adds, "But you still could have disarmed him several moves earlier." 

She scowls at that, and scoffs, "What would be the fun in that? I'd rather play with Ferrie a bit." She grins, and turns towards the boy as he joins them, frowning. Victa shoves his shoulder, and he shrugs it, rolling his eyes, but Ani catches the faint smile that appears and thinks,  _Good_.

"He's going to get you back one day," Deco Ren drawls, and Ani glances at the blonde as he nods up at them, "And you're going to be sorry for it, kid."

Deco stands, stretching his arms out behind him, and the rest of the Knight rise to follow suit. Ani Ren studies his Knights as they settle into a half-circle around him, gaze flickering to Jus Ren and Sacra Ren as they are the last to straighten, and then he nods. In unison, they nod back. 

"The Supreme Leader has tasked us with retrieving a droid carrying the map to Dahlia Coutier," he announces, voice low and even, "It is currently on the  _Millennium Falcon_ with Shay Hart. We leave in an hour." 

There is a moment of stillness. None of them point out the obvious, though Feru shifts restlessly and he catches Sacra's slight frown, and then Muta is grinning, slow and crooked. "Well, that sounds absolutely delightful. I, for one, am  _thrilled_." 

Ani gives him a dry look, but he seems to have succeeded in breaking the silence. The others start moving, then, bending to collect sabers and robes as they prepare to leave. "I'll meet you in the hanger," he says, and leaves them to it, relieved for the opportunity to get away finally. 

The doors to his chambers _whir_ open and closed to admit him quietly, and his room is even quieter. The silence is nearly oppressive, pressing down on him steadily, and yet it puts him at ease as he stands still in the center of the room for a moment, staring straight ahead. He feels the tightness in his chest loosen.

And then he closes his eyes, and there it is: the flickering gleam of gold, waiting for his attention. The same flare of curiosity he felt the first time he sensed it rises in him now, but instead of tugging it apart to see what might be waiting for him at the center, he inhales deeply and starts to build. Little by little he pulls the shadows over the light, boxing it in and hiding it from view, and as he works he can hear the soft undercurrent of voices getting louder.

It is as if that flickering light had been keeping them at bay; now, as he hides it out of sight and out of mind, deep in the corner of his mind where he can not and will not think about it, he senses their presence redoubling. 

" _Shâsotjontû châtsatul nu tyûk,_ " they whisper, a symphony of voices grating against the inside of his head, and Ani Ren clenches his jaw. There is an overlay there, different voices hissing different urges into his thoughts, but through it all comes the humming chant of, " _Tyûkjontû chàtsatul nu midwan._ "

Ani opens his eyes, and forces the din of breathy murmurs to fade into the background. He stays there for a while, just breathing out the tight knot of tension that has building since Snoke's summonings, and then he sets his shoulders back and nods. 

He strides across his chambers, and ducks down to find where he threw his helm across the room earlier. He finds it wedged in a corner, and yanks it free with a roll of his eyes. The damnable thing simply  _won't_ break, no matter how hard he batters it, and as long as it remains whole Snoke will insist he wear it. As he yanks it back down over his head, he silently wonders if flames might melt it, and he is smiling slightly in amusement when the helm clicks into place. 

Ani Ren tilts his head, testing the weight, and then he strides from his quarters without looking back. 


	2. Chapter 2

She is standing on the edge of a cliff that she doesn't recognize, dust rising around her as she stares down the side. It is not Jakku's familiar dirt; she knows that immediately. This sand is finer, almost white, and it shifts in the air as she frowns, craning her neck slightly to peer deeper into the pit below, where there seems to be nothing but more sand. 

For a moment, she thinks that she sees something move. 

" _Hazel_ ," someone murmurs from behind her, and she jolts, turning, hit with a sudden wave of urgency, the trembling need to see who it is—

"Hazel," comes a louder voice as someone shakes her shoulder, and Hazel wakes up with a gasp, shooting up in her bunk. She hits her head on the upper bed and swears, cringing and turning to find Cassel smiling sheepishly. "Sorry."

"'s alright," she mumbles, frowning slightly. She can feel the wisps of her dream leaving her, but her heart is still thumping with that sense of haste. She just can't remember  _why_. She rubs at the back of her head and then looks up at Cassel again. "Uh, what's going on?"

"We're arriving above Takodana soon," Cassel says, shifting back onto his heels to give her more space as she sets her feet on the floor, and for that Hazel is grateful. "That's where we're meeting up with the rest of the fleet. Hey, it's nice to meet you, by the way. Sorry, I kind of skipped that earlier." He smiles wide, and Hazel realizes that his front tooth is chipped as he sticks his hand out. "I'm Cass. Cassel Dameron, actually, but Cass is less wordy."

"I know," she says, smiling slightly, because Atty had told her as much when he first saw BB-8 and wanted to know where the pilot was. She glances down at his hand and then takes it, shaking briefly as she tries out the nickname, "Nice to meet you too, Cass. I'm Hazel."

"I know," he jokes, stepping back even further as he adds, "Thanks for taking care of BB-8. He says you were kind to him."

Hazel takes his movement as indication to stand and does so, smiling in full at the thought of the little droid. "Of course. I'm just glad he's okay. Who would have thought he was carrying such precious cargo?" 

"Entrusting galaxy-changing information with droids is sort of our specialty," Cass laughs, and Hazel shoots him a puzzled look, but he doesn't seem to notice. He is already turning away, heading out of the bunks, and after a quick glance around to confirm Atty is already gone, she follows. 

When they reach the cockpit, Atty is back in the co-pilot's seat, leaning forward to listen with rapt interest as Shay points to various controls and explains their functions. She turns towards them with a languid grin as they arrive and says cheerfully, "Rise and shine, kiddo. Have you seen the map yet?"

Hazel starts, taken off guard. She  _hasn't_ — when would she have had the time?— but she also hadn't ever considered that she would  _get_ to see it. The First Order was hunting for that map, and so was the Resistance. That map led to  _Dahlia Coutier_. Hazel might have helped get BB-8 back, but she was just a scavenger from Jakku— why would they trust her with something like  _that_? It just wasn't smart, in her opinion, but she thought Shay might take offense if she pointed out the smuggler's awful sense of survival skills.

"No," she admits instead, shrugging one shoulder. "Atty found us pretty quick after BB-8 found me."

"Great," the blonde said cheerfully, pushing to her feet, "Neither have any of us. Where's that droid, Cass?"

The pilot turns to head back towards the common area, and Shay follows, motioning for Atty and Hazel. They exchange a glance before obeying, and Hazel has to bite back the slight thrill that shoots through her. She's going to see  _the_ map. She can't imagine that it's really much to look at, but the fact that half the galaxy seems to be looking for it makes it valuable; she can't resist the part of her that loves to hoard valuable things. 

"Go on, BB-8," Cass says when they've assembled around the little round droid, and he rolls in a quick circle before complying. 

Hazel was wrong. There is a  _lot_ to look at, and it is... magical. 

A galaxy unfurls around them, holo-planets winking into existence and hanging suspended through the room. Stars shift, twinkling in artificial blue tones, and Hazel reaches out to touch one floating near her face with a quiet sense of awe. Her fingers pass through it slowly, and she turns, taking in the stretch of star systems scattered around the rest of the crew. She catches sight of Shay, looking up a glowing trail cutting a path through the imaginary plane, and is momentarily struck by the look on her face. 

"This map isn't complete," Shay says, breaking the hushed silence before Hazel can speak, "It's just a piece. Ever since Dahlia disappeared, people have been looking for her... There must be dozens of these pieces, scattered across the galaxy." 

Hazel frowns slightly, trying to remember everything she's ever heard about Dahlia Coutier. "Why'd she leave?" 

There is a long moment of silence. Hazel glances away from another cluster of stars to see Cass staring across the room at Shay, mouth drawn tight, but when she looks to Shay the blonde is still staring up at the path, her expression distant. "She was training a new generation of Jedi. One boy... An apprentice turned against her, destroyed it all. Dahlia felt responsible, and then she just... left. Walked away from everything." 

"Do you know what happened to her?" Atty asks, frowning slightly. 

Shay shakes her head, finally looking away from the path and towards them. Her gaze lingers on Cass before sliding away, to Atty. "There's a lot of rumors. Stories. The Resistance seems to think she went looking for the first Jedi temple."

There is that word again: Jedi. Hazel knew what they said about Dahlia, had heard the legends, but... "The Jedi were  _real_ , then?" 

Shay lets out a chuckle, turning around to gaze at the stars around them with a shake of her head. "I used to wonder that myself, you know. Thought it was all just a bunch of mumbo-jumbo... I mean, magical power holding together good, evil, the dark side and the light." She lets out a soft laugh and glances over her shoulder at Hazel. "Crazy thing is, it's all true. The Force, the Jedi, the Sith... All of it. It's all true." 

They are still then, looking at the holographic galaxy in silence, and Hazel takes a moment to mull it over. The Force... She had never really put much thought into whether the stories could be  _true_ , had never seen this Force working, and she still couldn't say that she believed it. Surely Shay Hart must have seen  _something_ to say it with such conviction. Hazel finds herself  _wanting_ to believe it. There is just something... right about it. 

"Well, that's good, BB-8," Shay says after a moment, patting the droid on the head before heading back towards the cockpit as BB-8 lets the map fade away, "We should be pretty close, now." She pauses, waiting for the others to get the hint and follow, and they do. She turns towards Hazel as she settles in the pilot's seat once more, the solemnity of moments ago falling away as she grins wryly. "You ever seen Takodana before, kiddo?" 

Hazel has never seen anything but the endless desert of Jakku, and she hasn't even seen the entirety of that planet. She shakes her head, and tries to squash down the quiet thrill of seeing something  _new_ that rises in her gut. She won't be staying for long, and beside— she won't be seeing any new planets after this, not until her parents return to her on Jakku. 

"You're gonna love it," Shay says with a nod, and Hazel doesn't doubt it. 

Cass has leaned forward, his hands braced against the back of Atty's reclaimed chair, and he is watching something on the monitors. "Any minute now."

Hazel is about to ask any minute  _what_ when the  _Falcon_ seems to come to an abrupt halt, the blue glow of hyperspace dropping away before them. She blinks, startled by the change, and feels her jaw go slack as she looks out over the  _green_ that stretches out in all directions. She's never seen so much vibrant color in her  _life_ , and her fingers itch for the bits of charcoal she used to draw on the walls of her AT-AT with; she wonders, amazed, if she could even capture this beauty in something as dark as black. No, she thinks she would need some of the rare paint that would pass through the junkyard, the thick stuff that peeled off of the sides of battered ships and old bits of droids, to  _really_ get this planet right. 

"It's something, huh?" Shay asks, a note of affection creeping into her voice, and Hazel realizes that she has been staring for too long, her throat tight and eyes wide. 

"It's... beautiful," the girl finally breathes, unable to look away, "I didn't know there was so much green in the whole galaxy." 

One of the boys makes a soft noise to her left, and she glances over to see Atty nodding slightly, looking forward out the viewport. "I haven't seen any planets like this up close, either. It's a lot." Hazel feels something in her warm; he gets it. 

"Well, stick with us, and you'll see all sorts of cool things from now on," Cass announces, clapping Atty on the shoulder, and then he turns towards Hazel with another of those easy, charming grins.

Her stomach drops, hit with the sudden reminder that she  _can't_ stick around with them, but Cass doesn't seem to notice and Hazel says nothing. She just looks away, back out to the sea of green, and watches as they bank over a wave of trees. As they rise, she sees a castle in the distance, standing tall beside the gleaming surface of a lake. 

"Where are we?" she murmurs, staring down at the castle in fascination as they swoop closer, slowly losing speed. It looks older and more worn as they approach, but it is still more beautiful than any shoddy tent she's seen on Jakku, and she wonders who could possibly afford to live here. How many credits did a  _castle_ cost?

Did they even use credits on a planet this green and beautiful? 

"This is Maz's old watering hole," Shay says by way of explanation, but Hazel finds that this answer does not actually explain anything. She frowns, and Cass catches her expression, grinning. 

"Maz Kanata is an old friend of the Resistance," the pilot provides, glancing down at Atty as the other boy looks up at him, and Hazel is struck by how their stares always seem to find each other's, over and over, like magnets. Cass is smiling when he looks back up at her. "This is her castle. Sort of a crossroads for everyone who knows how to play by her rules. The Resistance uses it to link back up, sometimes."

Atty is nodding slightly, looking thoughtful. "We always suspected Maz was involved with you, but no one could ever get enough confirmation to justify a raid." He looks bemused. "She must be  _really_ good if even Hux thinks the evidence is too sparse." 

Hazel blinks at him, frowning. "What are you talking about?" Wasn't  _he_ with the Resistance? No, now that she thought about it, Cass had said that Atty was Resistance  _now_ , and had just encouraged him to stay. "Who is Hux?"

Cass stares at her. "General Hux?" When she stares back at him blankly, he gapes. "The First Order General?"

The name does not ring a bell with her, though she knows of the First Order,  _of course._ Only vaguely, in pieces; news of the heightening war had always been interesting bits of gossip among smugglers and scavengers, but it was never interesting enough to warrant anyone getting  _involved_. Hazel had never paid much attention, too focused on staying alive and waiting for her family. 

In fact, the day BB-8 had rolled into her life and brought a hoard of First Order soldiers with him was the first time in her life she'd really considered the First Order  _real._

"I, um," Atty says, looking mildly uncomfortable, "I used to be with the First Order. Hux was my boss."

Hazel frowns and looks at him, long and intent. He doesn't  _look_ much like a First Order soldier to her, with his round cheeks and soft brown eyes. Even his tousled mop of mousy brown hair looks too soft, and she tilts her head, squinting as she tries to imagine him in the stiff black and white of the Stormtroopers who had given chase. "I don't see it."

"That's because he was meant to be with us," Cass says, all cock-sure and smug, "Atty here's got Resistance in his blood. Did you know he helped me steal a ship right out of their hanger? Absolute madman. He came to get me from containment, all," he suddenly pitches his voice lower, mimicking the rough edge of the soldiers, " _Ani Ren wants the prisoner_ —"

"We're heading down," Shay interrupts before Hazel can open her mouth to ask who  _that_ is, and  _something_ flashes across Cass' features, too quick for her to pin it down. Shay carries on breezily, her voice lighter now, "Everybody hold on."

Hazel finds herself clutching the back of the woman's chair as the  _Falcon_ dips into a steep dive, sliding in neatly among an array of battered looking ships, and it is all over so quickly but she still feels her stomach plummet and then surge with the movement. As much as she enjoyed the sight from the sky, she has to admit she is a bit relieved to be back on solid ground. 

"Right," Shay says, standing, and she nods at the boys, "Cass, you know what to do. Get down there and get in touch with Maz. Take Atty with you. Hazel, come with me." 

She turns, and Hazel blinks at Cass and Atty in mild confusion before she turns to follow the blonde. Being alone with her is both unsettling and mildly thrilling — this is  _Shay Hart_ , after all, and Hazel might have warmed up to the reality of it, but it is still a bit of a shock every time she thinks about it. _This ship made the Kessel Run in twelve parsecs_ , she thinks, stepping into the hall behind the pilot. 

They round a corner into the captain's quarters, and Hazel hovers awkwardly in the doorway as Shay bustles about inside, pulling blasters out of lockers and tossing them on the bed. It doesn't seem very safe, but Shay doesn't seem concerned, and Hazel simply watches in anxious silence until the blonde turns toward her. 

Shay just looks at her for a moment, her grinning mouth strangely serious now, blue eyes dark with sincerity. She steps forward and holds out a small blaster, curling her fingers over Hazel's when the girl reaches out to take it slowly. Shay holds her fast and says, firmly, "Don't let Cass get to you, kiddo. He's a good guy, but a bit narrow sighted, if you know what I mean. To him, the Resistance is his whole life, and he doesn't understand when it's not someone else's. If you've gotta go home, you've gotta go home." 

Hazel's throat feels tight, and for once, the pressure of someone's hand on hers is not unwelcome. She can't explain the emotion that seems to choke her, but she finds herself nodding, the bud of anxious worry that had been blooming in her chest easing. The realization that she would have to leave and that they might  _care_ had been chewing at her since that first conversation, and the way Shay is looking at her now is so full of understanding and warmth that she just... 

"Thank you," she says, cutting her gaze away, embarrassed by her own emotions. Shay squeezes her fingers once before withdrawing, and Haze glances up at her once more, quick, before turning the blaster over in her hand and looking down at it instead. 

"That," Shay says, nodding towards the little blaster, "Is for you. I want you to be careful down there, kiddo. Alright?"

Hazel nods, not trusting herself to speak, moved by the raw affection in the smuggler's voice. Shay pats her on the head, jostling one of her buns, and says cheerfully, "Alrighty, then. Let's go." 

—

Maz's Castle is in a state of  _mayhem_. Humans and humanoids alike shout over the subtle din of music, bodies shifting and shoving in a mess of more creatures than Hazel has ever seen in one place in her  _life_ , and for a second she just stops in the doorway, frozen. She does  _not_ want to go in, already leery of being trapped within so many people, the inability to escape settling in, but then Shay is striding forward and she doesn't have much of a choice, does she? 

She thinks she sees the flop of Atty's mousy hair when a voice rings out, loud and commanding, " _SHAAAAAAY HART!_ "

Everything comes to a grinding halt as everyone in the bar turns towards them, and Shay stands there looking sheepish, rubbing the back of her neck. "Hiya, Maz. Jeez, do'ya gotta make a scene?"

Gradually, the other patrons turn away again, and the chatter picks back up. Hazel is relieved, and she trails behind Shay, craning her neck to see who it was that had thundered across the room. When they come to a stop at a table, she realizes that it is an absolutely tiny alien woman, who stands on the table with her hands on her hips. Her eyes are  _giant_ , enlarged by the huge goggles obscuring half her face, and Hazel has to remind herself not to stare. 

"Your boys here were just filling me in on the situation," Maz says, all business, her goggles whirling slightly as they adjust to focus on Shay, "So, you've got the map, huh? Right back into the mess, aren't you, Hart?"

"You know me," the blonde jokes, sliding into the booth beside Cass, who scoots closer to Atty, " _Mess_ is my middle name." 

"More like you'll do whatever the General asks," Maz says pointedly, and Hazel's interest in piqued as she watches them, but there is something... 

Something calling to her, pulling like a tug in her gut, and she finds herself moving, pushing clumsily through the crowd. Her body moves of its own volition, drawing her closer, as if in a trance; she feels as if she is someone else, stepping quickly down a darkened set of stairs, and then she is in a basement. 

It is cool and damp down here, so far removed from the packed crowd upstairs, and it all feels so distant... 

She comes to with her fingers pressed against the worn wood of an old door, and she's not sure when she got there, but the door swings inwards silently as she grazes it. Hazel stares, enthralled, and steps inside the vaulted storage room slowly. The air is thick with dust, years and years of it trapped in the stale room, but something rolls down her spine that feels  _right_. Like she was meant to be here, meant for this dark room in the pits of an unknown castle. 

There is a box waiting for her, dead center, and she drifts towards it, overwhelmed with the sudden, pressing need to see what is inside. The hinges creak as she lifts the lid, and she hesitates, nervous; but then that steady haze settles over her again and she is pushing the lid back fully, gripping the edges of the box when she sees what is resting inside. 

It's a lightsaber.

Hazel is stunned, staring at the smooth, reflective silver of the hilt. She knows what it is intuitively —  _everyone_ knows what a lightsaber must look like, even those who have never seen the practically obsolete weapons, but the knowledge of it seems to resonate through here, quick and sure. She reaches to touch it, gently, her fingertips grazing against cold steel, and she hears a  _hissing_ —

She jerks, turning her head, and suddenly she is standing in a dark cave, her outstretched fingers pressed against the damp wall. Something, somewhere, is glowing, and she turns towards the light, squinting, and she is—

—turning around on a cliffside, staring out over the dusty drop, watching something shift on the ground far, far below. She stumbles back a step, away from the edge, and whirls around to run—

—down a dark corridor on a foreign ship, her heart beating in tandem with her feet on the black floors, and she hears someone screaming up ahead. She slides to a stop, thrown, and whips around in the narrow corridor, looking back the way she came—

—and she is looking across a dark, dark cavern, towards where the lone source of light radiates. There is a girl, blue lightsaber raised in front of her, feet planted on either side of a fallen form and golden hair sparking in the dim light as someone laughs—

Hazel steps forward, trying to see, and thinks, for a moment,  _Shay?_ , and she is suddenly falling forward, falling to her knees in the grass as a storm whips around her. She raises her head just in time to see someone bearing down on her, but before she can scream a shimmering black lightsaber punches through their chest. Hazel scrambles backwards, away—

—her back hits a wall, and she looks up to see, across a grassy meadow, a temple  _burning._ She lurches to her feet, heart in her throat, and turns—

—sees, just for a moment, rows and rows of soldiers, faces turned up towards her as they salute—

—and she is back in that storm, rain slamming down on the battlefield around her. A tall figure dressed all in black steps in front of her, black blade held low to the side, crackling with a sinister energy. The world suddenly glows red as lightsabers ignite in the rain all around them, and six others flank him now, as Hazel steps back—

—and lands hard on the basement floor, the distant whisper of a voice skittering down her spine in parting:  _These are your first steps..._

Breathless, Hazel stares up at the box on the table, her pulse racing as she swallows. The images are crowding in her brain, struggling not to be forgotten, but she is so overwhelmed that she doesn't know what to do with them, where to even  _start._  

 _What_ was _that?_ she asks herself, bewildered, and rises shakily to her feet. Her skin shivers and crawls as she looks down at the lightsaber, and she takes a hasty step back from the blade, nervous. She is afraid to touch it again. She has never experienced anything like it, and dread rises in the back of her throat, thick. 

"I have to get back to Jakku," she whispers, because Jakku is endless in its typicality. Nothing ever changes on Jakku. Her life was  _normal_ on Jakku, removed from all of this, and her  _famil_ _y_ is coming back to her there. 

_Your first steps..._

Hazel shudders and flips the lid to the box closed hastily, stepping away quickly and turning to go. She stops short, however, when she sees that Maz is standing in the doorway, watching her with huge, unblinking eyes. 

"Oh—" she gasps, startled, and wonders how long she has been there. Had she seen, too? Did she know what that was? A new thought occurs to her, and she hopes that the alien doesn't  _mind_ finding Hazel down here, but then, they  _are_ surrounded by old relics and she is just a scavenger—

"That lightsaber calls to you," Maz said, inclining her head towards the box. There is something odd in her expression as she looks at Hazel, and then she beckons, and Hazel swallows as she steps closer obediently. The little alien stares up at her, straight into her eyes, and then nods, "You must go with them.  _You_ will find Dahlia Coutier." 

Panic seizes in Hazel's chest, the realization that this is all  _real_ , and she is hit with an emotion that is too deep for her to name. Instead she gasps, shaking her head as she insists, "No, I— I have to get back to Jakku."

"So Shay says," Maz says, clucking her tongue, and she reaches to take Hazel's hand, limp in the small woman's grasp, "Dear child. I see your eyes. You already know the truth. Whomever you're waiting for on Jakku, they're never coming back. But... there's someone who still could."

Her heart squeezes in her chest, a protest rising on her tongue, the urge to scream that  _no_ , they were coming back for her, they were, but all that comes out of her mouth is a soft, "Dahlia?"

Maz shakes her head, just slightly, but she doesn't correct Hazel. She just grasps the girl's hand tighter and says, firmly, "The belonging you seek is not behind you. It is ahead. I am no Jedi, but I know the Force. It moves through and surrounds every living thing. Close your eyes. Feel it."

Hazel hesitates, but she closes her eyes, struggling to feel anything through the steady thumping in her chest, the rush of blood in her head. For a quiet moment she thinks there is something there in the darkness, a cold white light winking into awareness, calling her, pulling her, and she thinks,  _The Force?_

"The light," Maz says, "It's always been there. It will guide you. The saber, take it. Go!" 

Something swoops in her gut, and she pulls her hand back, shaking her head quickly. No, there is something wrong with that, something not right; she can't explain it but she  _knows_ she can't, and she is still fumbling for the words to say it when she gasps out, "No, I can't— that saber isn't for me— I won't touch it ever again!" 

She takes a step around Maz, shaking, and then she takes off down the hall, shooting up the stairs that led her down to this dark, strange place. The crowd swells before her and she pushes through it, out of the castle and into the sunlight, her pulse wild in her veins. Something tugs on her, and she looks up, just in time to see a ship wink into existence far overhead. She cranes her head back, squinting up at it. 

"Time to go, kiddo," Shay suddenly says from behind her, and Hazel jolts, glancing over her shoulder. The smuggler moves forward briskly, Atty and Cass just a step behind, and Hazel has the bizarre feeling that she has just stepped back into reality— a reality where these are her companions, and there are no cold lightsabers calling to her in the dark. "Margy has arrived."

The girl trails after them, back towards the  _Falcon_ , and glances up at the ship once more. She frowns slightly, spectating on this Marg she's heard mentioned in passing, and asks, quietly, "Who is that, by the way? The Resistance?"

Atty has fallen into step beside her, and he nods. "General Mikaela." 

"Princess Margaux, you may know her as," Shay says from up ahead, something amused coloring her voice, and Hazel nearly stops in her tracks. Of  _course_ she's heard of the Senator Princess Margaux Mikaela. Everyone in the galaxy has heard that name.

And she is going to  _meet_ her. 

"Oh," she manages, trying not to sound too overwhelmed or starstruck, and she looks back up to the sky then. Something... Something is wrong, however, and she finds herself frowning slightly. She feels a soft  _shift_ , like silk dragging down her spine, and then there is a second ship appearing in the atmosphere, this one smaller and sleeker and much, much closer. "What—"

"That's the  _Jedi Killer_ ," Atty says, gaping upwards now too, "What are the Knights doing out  _here_?" 

Shay's mouth is tight as she looks up, watching as TIE fighters start to fan out, swooping down towards the earth, bringing panic back up into Hazel's throat. "They're here for the droid. Let's  _go_ , people!"

"Who is the Jedi Killer?" she gasps, stumbling to catch up, but she can't look away from the ships overhead, the fighters whizzing closer. Suddenly she is back on Jakku, paralyzed with fear at the first sight of them, and she feels someone's hand grasp her elbow. 

Cass, she realizes, as the pilot pulls her with him and explains in a rush, "Not who, what, now. Used to be a Sith Lord—" blasts slam into the earth  _far_ too close for comfort and shadows pass over them as the TIE fighters arrive, swooping around the castle, and there is an explosion of noise as the patrons start to filter outside, yelling, running for ships, and through it all is Cass shouting, "Now it's what they call Ani Ren's ship! Let's go, Hazel!" 

She stumbles after him, glancing up as more shadows pass overhead, and she realizes with a start that the Resistance has arrived. Starfighters have joined the fray, and the world is  _alive_ with blaster fire, the screaming of people and ships alike—

The ground  _shakes_ , and suddenly she is being thrown to the side, Cass' hand ripped from her arm as a blast hits far to close for comfort. Hazel lands hard, her head spinning, and scrambles to her feet to see a wall of smoke. "Cass!" she yells, panicked, but she can see blaster fire lighting up on the ground now, short bursts of red that mean Stormtroopers have arrived—

Someone steps forward out of the smoke, hard white and black armor clacking together, blaster drawn. Hazel has a split second to register the soldier before her flight response is kicking in, and then she forgets all about Cass and getting to the  _Falcon_. She does the only thing she can think of, what her survival instinct demands of her. 

She turns around and runs. 


	3. Chapter 3

Deep beneath Maz Kanata's Castle, a solitary figure still stands where Hazel left her, looking across the room at the box that rests on the table. It hasn't been opened in years; no one has been  _able_ to open it in years. 

"So, Cece," Maz hums, thoughtful, "It's her, is it?" 

There is no answer in the silent, still closet, dust resting heavily across all things, but the woman nods as if there were one. The ground rumbles overhead, and she looks up, clucking her tongue. "And so it begins again."

Maz turns away from the box and charges up the stairs, back to the chaos awaiting. 

—

It takes Hazel far longer than she would like to admit to notice that she is not alone in the forest. 

BB-8 rolls frantically behind her, whirling wildly in an effort to catch up, and it only occurs to her that the shrill beeping in the background had been the droid all along when she catches a flash of orange out of the corner of her eye. Hazel gasps, sliding to a stop, leaves flying as she stumbles through the brush. Her chest is heaving, heart pounding desperately, and she inhales sharply before exhaling in a rush, "What are you doing? You have to get back to the ship, BB-8, they need you! You're too important to get lost!"

The droid beeps shrilly up at her, rolling back and forth in a short line, and Hazel shakes her head, panic surging in her throat. She can still hear the sounds of war in the distance, filtering through the trees, and her limbs are locking up, throat closing as she tries not to freak out, to crumble under the weight of everything. " _Go_ , BB-8! Go back to Cass!"

She flings her hand out, pointing back towards the way they came with her blaster, and freezes when she hears crashing in the distance. "You need to get out of sight  _now_ , while I draw them off.  _GO!_ " 

The girl whips around without waiting to see if the droid has listened, taking off through the forest and ignoring the fact that she is running  _away_ from the  _Falcon_ _,_ away from the only safety she might have, but it is fine, it is fine, she has grown up alone and she has survived and she will survive this—

Something descends upon her, a dragging brush against the back of her neck, and she slides to a stop, freezing. Everything is still, the forest hanging in suspension around her, the battle so, so distant now, but she can feel...  _something_ , like a tug in her gut, urging her to stay still. The sudden silence of the forest settles thickly in her veins as the trees hold their breathe, waiting, waiting. 

She hears it then, the soft rasping hiss of a lightsaber igniting, and she brings up her blaster nervously. She can't tell where it came from, but her spine prickles and she whips around, leveling the blaster at the tall figure who strides towards her out of the trees. Her stomach drops, and she recognizes him from her vision, covered in black from head to toe and holding a crackling black saber down and to the side. Something bursts in her chest, cold and white, and she knows, instantly, intuitively, just as she knew the lightsaber—

Ani Ren. 

Hazel shoots, and keeps shooting as she scrambles backwards, her pulse slamming hard in her throat and her vision swimming. He flicks his wrist lazily, deflecting the blasts, and she catches sight of the white static thrumming across the blade's surface, erratic and wild, and she is  _terrified_. She fires again, desperate, before whipping around to take off running once more, because surely, surely he would have to catch her to use a weapon like  _that_ , he doesn't have a blaster like the Stormtroopers—

And then she freezes in place, barely stopping herself from careening into the slender, cloaked figure that has appeared behind her. Hazel gasps, and backs up a step, bewildered. There is a flash of red out of the corner of her eye and she turns, just in time to see them step forth from the trees on all sides, forming a loose circle around her with red sabers drawn.

 _"That's the Jedi Killer,"_ Atty had said, gaping,  _"What are the Knights doing out here?"_

She is surrounded. 

Hazel's chest heaves as she stares around her, paralyzed, and for a moment she thinks that her heart has stopped. They are in black, all of them, faces hidden beneath masks, and it is so unnerving— to be seen without being able to see back— but the lightsabers are what truly terrify her. She has never seen one  _ignited_ in her life, not until this moment, and now there are so  _many_ of them, glowing red and sinister all around her. Her gaze skitters from one Knight to the other, shifting anxiously, but none of them move a muscle, still as the tree's shadows. 

There is a shift behind her and she inhales sharply, body tensing as terror hits her anew, before she whips around and fires at Ani Ren once more, desperate to just take one of them with her—

His off-hand flickers up and suddenly she freezes, utterly unable to move, a gasp slipping out. His saber slashes in another lazy arc, deflecting the blast that she had gotten out, and Hazel's gaze flickers to follow it as it shoots sideways. A Knight ducks casually to avoid getting hit by the stray bolt, helmed head turning towards Ani Ren briefly, and Hazel can practically  _feel_ the exasperation. 

None of them speak, and Hazel's shallow breaths mingle with the ominous humming of their lightsabers. Her gaze jerks back to Ani Ren as he comes another step forward, and she sees that his odd lightsaber is down at his side once more, head cocked to the side slightly. She can feel his stare even if she can't see his eyes under that black helm, and it shivers through her, turns her blood to ice. It feels familiar. 

"You're the girl," he says suddenly, voice cold and detached through the modulator, a sound that grates against the inside of her skull. "You helped them escape. The droid... Where is it?" 

He steps closer to her and Hazel swallows, straining pointlessly against the invisible grip that holds her steady, itching to lean away. The closer he gets the more she can see how much taller he is than her, and there is a disturbing moment when she can suddenly feel the warmth of him, radiating through the space between them, and she thinks,  _How can you be human_ _?_

She doesn't speak, grinding her teeth together, and Ani Ren steps to the side, circling her slowly. Her eyes shift, struggling to follow his movements, but all she can see are the Knights who stand in their circle, still and silent. She hears the rustle of his clothes, the dull crackle of his lightsaber, _feels_  the shifting of his presence, and then he is stopping at her side and considering her, thoughtfully. Her gaze darts sideways, towards him, and she swallows the sudden whimper that rises in her throat. 

The static-y black blade disappears, retracting with a soft hiss, and he takes a half step closer to her. His off-hand raises towards her temple and she flinches away internally, but she is still frozen in place and immobile as it pauses, inches away from her cheek. She struggles, and then struggles harder when an odd sensation washes over her: it feels like someone tapping against her temple with a fingertip, light and curious, and she is bewildered by unfamiliarity of it. The memory of the map, shimmering dimly in the  _Falcon_ 's hull, rises to the forefront of her mind, unbidden, and a surge of panic shoots through her when she realizes what is happening. 

Her breath leaves her in a whimper that she can't swallow back, and Ani Ren steps back, his hand dropping. 

"The map. You've seen it," he says then, and even the modulator can't hide the faint note of surprise, the curiosity. He turns his head towards the Knights, briefly, before his hand is coming back up again as he announces, louder, "Pull the division out. Forget the droid. We have what we need."

There is a brief flare of confusion, and then Hazel's world is going black. 

—

Ani leans forward, ducking to slide his arms under the girl's shoulders and knees as she slumps, boneless. When he straightens, it is to find his Knights breaking formation to step closer, and he senses the interest rolling off of them. He jerks his head in a nod, motioning for them to  _get moving_ , a brief surge of irritation shooting through him when Feru Ren steps too close, peering down at the girl curiously. 

The younger Knight seems to feel it, stepping back hastily, and then he is turning to step swiftly after the others as they stride back towards the ships. Ani Ren follows after a moment, letting his attention slide down to the unconscious girl as they move briskly through the forest. 

She is so  _small._

There is something horrifyingly light about her in his arms, and it is vastly at odds with the fierce girl who had whipped towards him, lip curled in a snarl. Golden eyes blazing, blaster drawn— she was a  _vision_ , taut with ferocity and the sheer will to survive. And yet— here, now, he realizes that she is so  _short_ , weighing hardly nothing, and there is one bizarre, deranged moment where he catches himself wondering if she eats enough. 

He shakes his head, dispelling the absolutely ridiculous train of thought, and feels Victa fall into step a pace behind his shoulder. He can sense her craning her neck, peeking down at the girl through her helm, and there is another surge of something dark and snarling in his gut; he shoves it down, irritated, and the feeling of  _threat_ recedes as Victa slows down, letting another pace or two spread between them. 

Ani can practically feel the comment she is biting back, and he picks up his pace, impatient to get the kriff out of this forest. The Knights are restless, their emotions whizzing through the air up ahead, and he  _knows_ they want to ask questions, but he also knows that they are reigned in on very, very tight leashes; they will not so much as look at the girl for too long until he allows it.

That doesn't stop him from sensing the fact that they want to look, though. The frustration of it gnaws at him, and as they draw closer to the battlefield, he feels the surge of voices at the back of his thoughts rising, hissing softly. They murmur together, a singing hum of viciousness, but one promise trickles through the chaos, slow and even:

 _Nwûl tash._ _Dzwol shâsotkun_.

—

Atty swings, hard, and hears the sickening crunch of metal as the butt of his blaster connects with the trooper's head at just the right angle to shatter the cheek. He doesn't have time to congratulate himself, however: the Stormtrooper howls and lurches forward, tackling him to the ground and sending his blaster flying. 

 _Oh, well_ , he thinks, as they roll across the slick battlefield in a tangle of limbs,  _I was out of bolts, anyway._

He comes out of the roll on top, scrambling to knock the trooper's helmet off, to get at something softer to hit, but before he can get more than a scratch in the other guy is yelling " _TRAITOR!_ " and flipping them over again. Atty grits his teeth, arms raising reflexively to catch his wild punches, and then there is a burst of heat and a wet gasp. 

The Stormtrooper slumps forward against him, limp, and Atty shrugs him off. Cassel Dameron stands above him, face smeared with ash and blood, but he grins cheerfully when Atty grasps his offered hand and pulls himself up. 

"Nice save," Atty cracks, hoarse, because it seems like Cass saving him is becoming a bit of a hobby for the Resistance pilot. There isn't time to linger and chat about it, though, and he sees Cass nod quickly before turning back towards the battle. Atty moves to follow, and then draws up short. The Stormtroopers are falling back, shouting to one another to withdraw, and for a moment Atty is confused. He glances around, looking for what could possibly have triggered the retreat, and freezes. 

At the edge of the forest, he sees them: the Knights of Ren, red lightsabers flashing to defect blaster bolts and cut through anything in their way as they move in a fluid half-circle. They advance with the same feral grace that he has seen over and over again, and there is that same chilled unease he always gets at the sight of them. It is different, now, being on the other wise of the battlefield — it is _worse._ They are quick and efficient, and Atty realizes that they are moving with _purpose_ , cutting a bloody path for Ani Ren as he strides after them, holding...

" _HAZEL_ _!_ " Atty yells, lunging forward, but Cass catches his arm before he can go charging after the Knights. He struggles, surging against the pilot's grip, shrieking, "NO!  _HAZEL!_ "

"You can't, Atty!" Cass is shouting back at him, yanking him back, and Atty struggles as Cass drags him in the opposite direction, towards the  _Falcon_. " _You can't fight the Knights of Ren!_ "

And he  _knows_ that, he knows he can't get her back now, has  _seen_ what the Knights would do to him, but he can't just  _accept_ that. That girl saved his  _life_ , and he feels desperation uncurling as he stumbles behind Cass, twisting to look back towards the disappearing Knights. He gasps out, "We can't let them take her." 

He thinks that Cass heard him, but the other boy doesn't stop moving, hauling Atty forward until they've reached the  _Falcon,_ and then Shay Hart is there, looking past them. Her mouth is set in a grim line, and Atty twists, just in time to see the Knights' shuttle lift off the ground. 

"They took her," Atty exhales, stunned, still not quite believing it, even as he watches the shuttle arc upwards, back towards the  _Jedi Killer_. "They took Hazel."

"I know, kid," Shay says flatly, and then she turns and walks away. 

It takes Atty a moment to realize that the fighting on the ground has stopped, and another to notice that Cass is still holding onto his arm. His gaze flickers down to the pilot's hand and then back up, but Cass isn't looking at him. He is staring after Shay, frowning, and when Atty turns, he sees that a Resistance transport has landed sometime when he wasn't looking. 

"The General," Cass says, and releases Atty to step away, heading towards the gathering troops quickly. Just like that. 

The former Stormtrooper stares blankly after him, casts one last glance towards the sky, and silently vows to get Hazel back before he hurries to catch up.   
  
—

Paramedics filter down the ramp first, taking off to start to aid the fallen, and they stream around Shay Hart as she stands at the bottom, waiting. No one pays her any mind, too busy with the tasks at hand, but she doesn't mind. A smuggler works best undetected, in her experience. 

General Margaux Mikaela is just as stunning as ever when she descends from the transport, dark hair twisted up into elaborate braids and stormy blue eyes locked right on Shay. She is dressed for war, slate grey dress simple and practical, but Shay looks at her and still sees her as she looked on that day years and years ago, with gold in her hair and her white, ornate dress fluttering in the breeze. 

She always will be Princess Margy to her, after all. 

C-3PO walks down the ramp with jilted strides then, and stops with a jolt when he sees Shay. "Goodness! Shay Hart! It is I, See-Threepio! You probably don't recognize me because of the red arm."

The droid holds it aloft, stepping between Shay and Margy, and both woman look at him, bemused. C-3PO turns towards Margy then and says, "Look who it is! Did you see who?" A pause, as the droid seems to realize his mistake. "Oh. Excuse me, Princ— General. Sorry. Come along, BB-8, quickly now."

The droid moves off swiftly, and there is a moment of still silence as Shay and Margy look at one another. It's been months. Shay can feel the time apart stretching between them, and yet, as seconds pass, she feels just the same as she always did, as if no time has passed at all. 

"You changed your hair," she says, to break the silence, cracking a wry smile. 

Something flickers on Margy's face, and then it softens slightly, a hint of a smile appearing. "Same jacket."

"No," Shay corrects, and steps forward, opening her arms slowly in a hesitant offering, "New jacket."

General Mikaela is still and cool for a moment, looking down at her raised arms, and then Princess Margy comes at her in two quick steps, letting her stone exterior fall away as she throws her arms around Shay's neck. They stand there for a moment, hugging one another tightly, and Shay sighs into her wife's shoulder as something heavy and solemn settles over her. 

"... I saw him," she admits, quietly, just for the two of them, "I saw our son, Margy. He was here." 

She feels Margy nod against her, grip tightening, and then they are silent again, in their own small, fragile bubble. The years catch up to them quickly and then fall away again. 


	4. Chapter 4

_Your first steps..._

Hazel jerks forward with a gasp, lurching, but she doesn't go far before she slams into something. Bewildered, head spinning, it takes a second before she registers the fact that she is strapped back against an angled rig, suspended in a monochrome room with bright, white lights. Her head throbs, hazy and disjointed. She blinks, shaking her head, and freezes when her gaze drops down from the ceiling. 

Ani Ren is crouched on the ground directly in front of her, leaning back on his heels to look up into her face. He is still wearing his mask, but just as in the forest, she can feel his gaze passing over her like a physical touch, the echo of fingers against her cheek. She shudders, sinking back against the rig, and bites out, "Where am I?" 

"Does the physical location really matter much?" He cocks his head to the side but otherwise makes no move to stand. Hazel's gaze darts down as she waits, relieved to see that his gloved hands are empty, hanging idly in front of him as he braces his forearms against his knees. His lightsaber is no where to be seen and she wonders if that is intentional. There is an undercurrent of something sarcastic in his voice when he finally adds, mildly, "You're my guest." 

Hazel jerks her gaze back up at that and stares, incredulous.  _You have got to be joking_ , she thinks, and then frowns when it occurs to her that he might be. Somehow, that is worse than if he isn't. Confused and vaguely disturbed, she gives a quick shake of her head and then yanks on the straps holding her wrists in place pointedly, glaring. She makes sure that there is no question about the sarcasm in  _her_ voice when she says, "Some host."

There is a second of silence, and she feels a flare of panic, thinking  _Why did you say that?_ , as it occurs to her that this man— boy?— could kill her with a flick of his wrist. And then he  _does_ flick his wrist, and she flinches, but all he has done is release the restraints from her arms. The careless ease of the demonstration is more intimidating than she cares to admit, but she tries to ignore the flutter of fear in her gut and raises a hand warily to rub at her left wrist, staring down at him cautiously. She refuses to let him know that he has unnerved her with the gesture. "Where are the others?" 

Ani Ren doesn't answer her for several beats, and she feels her blood chill. She is about to demand an answer when he leans back slightly, putting more weight on his heels, and asks slowly, "You mean the murderers, traitors, and thieves you call friends?" Hazel can hear the note of disdain in his voice and is affronted, but more than that, she is  _worried._ (And can she even call them  _friends?_ ) He shrugs then and says flatly, "I could lie, but I would prefer to be honest with you from the beginning. You'll be relieved to know that I have no idea." 

He still _could_ be lying, but Hazel can't fathom why he would tell her  _good_ news if he planned to lie. She also can't fathom why he would tell her the  _truth_ , though, so she finds herself mildly relieved but deeply, deeply confused. She scowls, annoyed, and stares into that dark mask with a flare of frustration.  _This is your fault_ , she thinks, bitter, because nothing was nearly so complicated or terrifying or downright  _confusing_ on Jakku. She's not entirely certain, but she is convinced that he started this whole mess somehow, and she is fully content to blame her  _captor_ for her remarkably awful last few days. 

Ani Ren tilts his head once more. "You still want to kill me," he comments, fascination filtering through the rough scratch of his modulator. 

He seems  _surprised_ , as if he hadn't just ruined her life and  _kidnapped_ her, and something spiteful and indignant rises in Hazel's chest. She thinks of the raw terror that had gripped her when he found her in the forest, and huffs, "That's what happens when you're being hunted by a creature in a mask."

Ani Ren stops, straightening slightly, and considers her. Hazel's skin crawls with the unnerving sensation of being watched, and just when she thinks she is going to snap and say—  _something_ — he is reaching up to unlatch his mask. There is a soft click as it releases and he stands as he pulls it free, straightening to his full height. He runs a hand through the mess of dark, dark curls that are unveiled, pushing them back off his forehead, and she is so surprised by the gesture that it takes her a second to realize that she is looking at his face. When she does she  _stares_ , stunned. 

He's young. And  _pretty._

The realization is  _jarring_ , but there is no other word for it. Ani Ren's features are so much softer than she would have imagined if she ever gave it thought, and she isn't sure what she was expecting, but it was  _not_ girlish lashes and a smattering of freckles that look very, very out of place on  _the Sith who terrorized her friends and kidnapped her_. Her gaze flickers over him, trying to rationalize the details even as the artist in her is scrambling to commit them to memory, and she meets his gaze a beat too late.  _There_ is something that makes sense: his eyes are an icy blue, cutting through her just as intently as they  _felt_ under the mask, and they stop her bewildered thoughts in their tracks. 

He watches her for a moment, cool and impassive, and then he turns away, stepping past her. Hazel's gaze darts after him, reminiscent of the forest; she gets the same creepy chill of having him out of her sight, even if she can hear his steps clearly and hear it when he drops the helm somewhere. There is a distinct shifting noise, like the sand of Jakku, and she furrows her brow slightly as curiosity gets the better of her. She tilts her head back, craning her neck to see him as he steps away from an alcove, but he catches her movement and turns towards her before she can figure out what it was. 

Hazel snaps her gaze forward, reluctant to be caught, and feels more than she sees him come to a stop several paces away. She can't help it: she flickers a glance towards him, catches him arching a brow at her. He jerks his head towards the alcove, confirming that he'd noticed, and says in a flat, dry tone, "The ashes of my enemies."

His voice is low and smooth, lighter than the modulator made it seem, but his words are absolutely  _not_. Hazel jerks, staring up at him in horror, and blurts, " _Really?_ "

Ani Ren stares at her for a second and then snorts, sounding mildly exasperated as he says shortly, "No." Hazel relaxes before scowling, thrown once again by the notion that he was  _toying_ with her. "I have no idea what is it. Sand? Dirt?"

He shrugs, the movement lazy and disinterested, and Hazel feels like she is having an out of body experience. She's not even entirely certain of who exactly Ani Ren  _is_ to the rest of the galaxy, or just how much she is supposed to fear him, but she gets the distinct impression that something here is  _not right_. She frowns and mutters, "So, then, it  _could_ be ashes, and you wouldn't know," because she is feeling that endless bit of  _confusion_ again and she is  _spiteful_. 

Silence. 

"Fair play," he grunts after the long pause, shaking his head, and Hazel snaps her gaze forward, away from him, when he suddenly steps towards her. He takes another step, and then another, and  _there_ is the piece she was missing: the fear is back, creeping up the back of her throat, and she exhales shakily when he gets so close that she can  _feel_ the heat of him, warm against her side. She can see him out of the corner of her eye, the flash of pale blue eyes as they pass over her curiously, but she keeps her head forward and refuses to look. Having him this close makes her skin  _crawl_ , and she focuses on keeping her breathing even instead of on his presence. 

"Tell me about the droid," he says, his tone almost  _conversational_ , and Hazel chances a quick glance towards him before staring straight ahead once more. He isn't trying to catch her gaze; his attention is fixated elsewhere, shifting over her features, and that is somehow more terrifying. 

She exhales shakily and then says, as evenly as possible, "He's a BB unit with a selenium drive and a thermal hyperscan vindicator, internal self-correcting gyroscopic propulsion system, optics corrected to—" 

"I am familiar with general droid technical specifications," he interrupts, and she hates that she can  _see_ him roll his eyes, because she realizes that she has looked towards him at the sound of his voice. Ani Ren looks back at her in a manner that is almost  _bored_ , and there is a hint of a superior note to his tone when he continues, "I don’t need to acquire one: What I want is located in its memory. It’s carrying a section of a transgalactic navigational chart. We have the rest, recovered from the archives of the Empire. We need the last piece. And somehow  _you_..." 

He leans towards her and she tenses, swallowing, bracing herself for whatever he thinks  _she_ is (she has heard that tone before, seen that look), but he doesn't finish his thought. A quick glance tells her that he  _is_ looking at her eyes now, intent and curious, and he breathes, "Did you know that you have Sith eyes?"

Hazel blanches, taken aback, and she is so startled by the completely unexpected turn and by the  _words_ that she forgets she is not supposed to look. She stares at him. "I—  _What?_ You're the Sith!" 

He blinks, his gaze focusing once more, and furrows his brow as he looks at her. "I'm not a Sith," he says, matter of fact and blank, and then he shakes his head, as if realizing that he's gotten off track. Even so, he adds, "The darkest of the Sith have golden eyes. And yet here  _you_ are... A scavenger, full of Light, somehow capable of convincing that droid to show you the map..." He is staring at her again, and Hazel stares back when she realizes that his tone is  _not_ what she has heard before, not at all what she was expecting. He sounds almost... awed? "With the eyes of a Sith." 

Her teeth clack together softly as she shuts her mouth, suddenly aware that she's been gaping at him in dismayed confusion, and flushes subtly. She doesn't know what to say to  _that_ , so she says nothing, gritting her teeth as she looks away from him and stares pointedly at the wall. No, she did  _not_ know that but neither is she going to let him see that she's affected by the connotation. Her eyes are her eyes and that's  _all_. 

There is a beat of silence, and then he sighs, sounding put-upon. "I know you've seen the map," he says, needlessly, because  _that_ much was clear and she suddenly is not sure  _how_ he knows that. "It's what I need. At this moment, it's all that I need." When Hazel remains silent, staring forward, his tone shifts towards irritated, with all the air of someone who would rather not be having this conversation. "You know I can take whatever I want."

A sharp ripple of fear spikes through her, but Hazel swallows and just says, through gritted teeth, "Then you don't need me to tell you anything, do you?"

"True." He takes another step closer, so close that she can feel the brush of his cloak, and mutters, "But I would have preferred to avoid this." Ani Ren lifts his hand then, his fingers grazing against her cheek, and Hazel bites down hard on the inside of it to stop herself from whimpering. He presses slightly, as if he can sense her teeth there, and says lowly, "Despite what you may believe, it gives me no pleasure. I will go as easily as possible... but I  _will_ take what I need."

Hazel wants to scream her fury and terror and frustration, wants to push him away and yell at him for pretending to  _care_ , but she can't move. She knows that it would do no good to lash out, that he could easily restrain her once more, and so she struggles not to cry instead, her heart racing wildly as he shifts closer to her. 

She feels his breath against her jaw and flinches, and in that moment she feels that uncanny sensation again, the light  _tap tap_ of someone rapping against her temple. She recognizes the feeling now and desperately tries to shut it out, to keep the door closed to his silent intrusion, but then she  _feels_ him batting aside her measly defensives and seeping into her thoughts. The act shudders with familiarity, with a sense of misplaced belonging, with the echo of a cold, sparking light in the dark behind her eyelids. Something  _sings_ between them. 

He hesitates.

His fingers still against her cheek, no longer pressing so hard, and her pulse thunders as she swallows into the silence. She is trying not to think about anything at all but the slight pause catches her attention and she thinks about it anyway, puzzled by the flickering impression she gets— curiosity? surprise?— before he seems to reorientate himself. 

"You're so lonely," he murmurs as he shifts even closer,  _too_ close, as if he has forgotten that he doesn't need to be so near to her to pull out her thoughts. Hazel trembles faintly and can see him out of the corner of her eye, his pale stare flickering over her face as he turns over what he finds in the pits of her mind. "So afraid to leave..." 

Hazel can picture them one by one, the memories he draws to the light, and they flit briefly through the forefront of her mind at his will. She tries to hold them back but can't, left feeling desperate and vaguely exposed, overwhelmed by his proximity and how  _soft_ his voice is when he says, "At night, desperate to sleep... You imagine an ocean. I see it... I see the island." 

She realizes that he is smiling slightly, and that she can feel the faintest impression of it,  _somehow_ — like a graze on the edge of her awareness, that is how she feels him. She is just entirely conscious of him and his movements, and she shudders, struck by the suddenly realization that there are tears trailing slowly down her face when she feels him wipe one away with his thumb. 

The motion leaves her spinning and she struggles reflexively, desperate to get away from the torrent of emotion creeping through her, but it is no good. Her fingers claw at the rig pointlessly. 

"And Shay Hart..." He pauses, fingers pressing down again, and she sees his throat bob when he swallows. She feels a shudder run through him, barely discernible, but his touch on her cheek shifts with the ripple. "She feels like the mother you never had. A dead end, that vision." His voice drops into something bruising and cold. "Let it go. I can tell you for a fact that she would have disappointed you."

Hazel thinks of Shay, of her warm grip and the gentleness of her blue eyes (so different from the frosty blue eyes of this boy), of the way that the woman seemed to just  _know_ what Hazel needed to hear and the way that she just  _said_ it. She has not known such affectionate, genuine, parental  _care_ in so long— it had meant so  _much_ to her— and she flushes, suddenly furious, and thrusts the thoughts to the forefront of her mind, forces him to look at them, to  _feel_ it. 

She turns her head towards him then, staring straight into his eyes as they flicker with  _something_ , and hisses, "Get—out—of—my—head."

Whatever hesitation she thinks she saw before, whatever it was that had shook through him at the mention of Shay Hart— it is gone now, his jaw tightening as he meets her stare and leans yet another inch closer. He is very nearly touching her, and she thinks she is breathing his breath, but Hazel  _refuses_ to flinch back. 

"Hazel," he says, lowly, his voice suddenly deeper, darker, and she starts at the sound of her name in his mouth, "You've seen the map. It's in there. And you  _will_ show me." 

Ani Ren pushes back from her, taking a step away, but his hand does not move from her cheek. His stare is  _burning_ as he looks down at her, suddenly so much taller again, and then he pauses and cocks his head to the side, as if sensing the terror that arches through her in response. He softens, marginally. "Don't be afraid. I feel it, too."

 _I won't hurt you_ , echoes through her thoughts, unspoken, and she furrows her brow, staring back at him. She wants to protest that she doesn't  _feel_ anything, wants to chase after that stray thought and pull it apart, see where it came from, if she imagined it. Instead she spits, "I'm not showing you anything." 

He smiles slightly, studying her at length, and has the audacity to sound  _amused_ when he responds mildly, "We'll see." 

Then he  _winks_ , and Hazel is stunned into silence, aghast. 

His fingers press more firmly against her cheek, and it is like a warning: the next moment he is pushing through her thoughts again, wading through them with ease and hunting for the memory he wants. Hazel grits her teeth against the sensation, angry once more, and tries to push back, to block him out— she can feel him, faintly, the flickering impressions of his thoughts, and she suddenly lashes onto them,  _pushing_ and then  _pulling_ —

She feels a soft  _shift_ , a sigh in the Force, and then suddenly  _she_ is in  _his_ head, having latched onto the feeling of him and tracked it back to the source. There is a sharp burst of surprise— the steely cold of marble walls, keeping her out, but Hazel grinds her teeth and shoves against them, demanding that this be  _fair_ , that this be  _equal_ —

And she is there again, surrounded by  _him_ , his presence a thick blanket over her own. Voices echo through the shadows, murmuring and rasping, and she is bewildered, at a loss; now that she has gotten in she doesn't know what to  _do_ , and there are no thoughts or memories here to rifle through. She can feel his panic, but she can also feel something like curiosity and calm assurance, and it hits her all at once: he knows how to hide from her, how to counter her intrusion. 

 _Nerfherder_ , she thinks, bitter, and then she feels it: a tug, vaguely familiar, like a half-remembered dream. She chases it into darkness, and there is nothing there in the shadows, but no— she feels it now, the white, icy light, calling to her, and she knows instinctively that this darkness is a trick, that she is meant to turn away from it, to be convinced that there is nothing there—

Hazel plows forward, into the shadowy corner of his thoughts, and grasps ahold of something biting and clear. 

"You're  _afraid_ ," she gasps, jolting back to herself in her surprise, and she sees that Ani Ren has backed away and is staring at her, stricken. "You're afraid that you'll end up like  _them_ , that he'll find out—"

" _How did you find that?_ " he demands, cutting her off, his voice rising slightly before he seems to reign his temper back into check. Hazel is startled to realize she can still sense him vaguely, that she can taste his anger on the back of her tongue, his confusion and panic. He flushes, and then hisses, all of the calm carelessness she'd seen until now evaporating as he snaps, " _Snoke_ cannot even see through that block, and  _you_ —"

Ani Ren breaks off and snarls, the motion  _feral_ , and Hazel jerks back, stunned. Before she can figure out what exactly he is asking her, he whips around and storms out of the room, clipped steps echoing behind him as the doors whizz closed once more. Silence settles almost immediately once she is left alone, and Hazel stares after him, bewildered. 

_What the kark?_

—

Ani Ren braces his hands against the corridor wall, head tipped down as he inhales a sharp, shaky breath, and struggles to choke back the rising tide of Darkness lashing through his veins. The Sith are  _screaming,_ feeding off of his panic and anger, and his head spins as his vision starts to darken and spot. The wall shakes with a subtle tremor as the Force bends and creaks around him, itching for release, for destruction. 

It takes another ragged gasp of air before he can break through the haze, reigning back his anger and forcing himself back under check, and his palms slide as he collapses against his forearms, forehead pressed into his arm guards as he closes his eyes and  _breathes_. He counts backwards, forcing himself to focus only on the numbers, and slowly, gradually, the roaring in his ears and the wild, flaring Darkness fade into background noise. 

He can see it, then: the brilliant golden light, torn away from the shadows he had once sought to hide it in, painting the insides of his eyelids with a sunny glow. Ani recoils, eyes opening as he pushes back off the wall, and runs a hand shakily through his hair as he tells himself to get a grip.

The girl.  _Hazel._  

He has no idea what she did, but she did  _something_ — or perhaps  _he_  did, pushing into her thoughts, shavit, maybe he had even done this by bringing her here. There is something  _about_ her, and he thinks of her in the forest again, golden eyes bright and fierce. The memory pales in comparison to the way she had shone in the rig, absolutely awash in gold that radiated from the Force around her, a halo of Light. 

It's her. 

He knows it's her, and the thought is suffocating, too much; he shoves it down roughly, viciously, claws into place the barriers she had torn apart and tucks the way she shakes him to the core down deep into the darkness. He forces it all from his mind, batters his thoughts into submission, drowns out the crescendo of whispered voices with his own thunderous silence, and then he straights his shoulders and exhales, slow and steady. His heart is still racing, but he breathes out harder, angrier, and wills his composition back into place piece by piece. 

He holds himself completely still until he can picture the scavenger without his breath hitching, without the rush of panic, the gripping thought of  _if she can find it_ ; he breathes through every spike until he feels nothing,  _is_ nothing, and then he strides from the empty corridor and heads straight for the training room. He needs to speak to his Knights, needs to check to see that  _their_ blocks are still holding—

A Stormtrooper appears from around the corner, heels clacking together in a quick stop as he raises his chin sharply. Ani halts as well and  _stares_ at him, blank and cold, irritated by the interruption. The trooper shifts with discomfort and then says, "Sir! The Supreme Leader has requested your presence." 

Silence. 

Everything is silent for one singular, frozen moment, and then his thoughts buckle under the shrieking of the Sith. Ani grits his teeth, grinding them together, and swallows down the momentarily flash of fear, the part of him that balked at the notion of facing Snoke when his barriers were low. He crushes the hesitation under his heel, ruthless, because he does not have  _space_ for that weakness. He cannot afford it. 

"Fine," he snaps, annoyed, and the trooper flinches. Ani brushes past him, utterly devote of caring for the kriffing messenger, and says over his shoulder, "See to it that one of the Knights guard the girl. I'll be back soon." 

He does not look back as he strides down the corridor, all thoughts of the girl left behind as soon as he rounds the corner. 

 —

"I'm telling you, Marg, the map isn't complete," Shay says again, trying not to feel frustrated with her wife when the Princess chooses to stare out over the holographic galaxy and ignore her. C-3PO is still babbling in the corner about metrics and data, trying to run the fragment against known maps, but Shay tuned the droid out a while ago. "This is pointless."

"General, I have made my final determination," the golden twit announces suddenly, and Margaux turns towards him quickly, stormy eyes almost hopeful. C-3PO looks apologetic (as much as a droid can) as he concludes, "Unfortunately, I have to conclude that this map contains insufficient—"

"Nevermind, Threepio," Shay interrupts and steps forward, shooing the droid away. He makes a scandalized noise but Margy just shakes her hair, deflating, and the droid walks rigidly away with his bad news. The blonde watches for a moment before sighing. "Hey, c'mon, Marg. Don't look like that."

"I was such a fool," her wife sighs, staring out across the stars that still glimmer, hanging suspended in the air around them. There is an old pain on her lovely face, and with it the same old weight of leadership that Shay had always seen in her. Margy tended to try to carry the galaxy on her shoulders, and Shay can see she hasn't stopped trying. "To think we could just find Dahlia and bring her back..."

"No, Marg," she says, feeling a flash of irritation. How dare her wife, so strong and sure and always so ready to believe in the future, in  _hope_ , be forced to doubt herself? "Dahlia was the fool to run away when we needed her. When  _you_ needed her."

Margy shakes her head, turning away, and Shay settles a hand on her shoulder gently. There is more she wants to say, so much that hangs in the air between them, but before she can make a move to either pull the woman closer or to even just say something, Cassel Dameron is appearing in the doorway. 

"General!" he calls, stopping short when he sees the two of them. There is an awkward pause that is broken when Atty follows a step behind, ducking around the pilot's frame and stepping quickly into the room. 

"We need to get Hazel back," he announces, heedless to the way Shay drops her hand and General Mikaela takes a half step away. The boy's normally soft eyes are blazing, and he sets his jaw as he plows on, "We can't just let them have her. The Knights of Ren are  _ruthless_ — Ani will _kill_ her—"

"Do you know where she is?" Shay interrupts, her gaze trained on Margaux as the Princess stiffens and turns her back. The blonde tries not to dwell too hard on the impression their son has left on the galaxy and chooses to focus her energy, instead, on pointing the impassioned boy in a better direction. "Or are you just here to yell pointlessly?"

Atty blinks, his mouth closing, and Cass pats him on the shoulder in a way that is almost sympathetic. The seems to rouse the boy; he straightens up once nore and says, fiercely, "Yes! I mean, maybe. I think so. The _Jedi Killer_ is more transport than it is base for the Knights; they'll have taken her to the _Finalizer_ , I'm sure of it." 

"If we can get a lock on the  _Finalizer_ , we can try to get her back," Cassel joins in, nodding earnestly, and he casts a glance towards Margy. She has not yet turned back around. "Look, Atty and I have gotten out of there before. What's one more go of it, huh? That girl is something else."

"She's got— the Force," Atty adds, nodding sagely, and Shay lets out a grunt. 

"That's not how the Force works," Margy sighs, turning towards them finally, and Shay sees that it is the General who is in place now. She shakes her head, looking almost fond as she looks at Atty, and then she adds, "You don't  _have_ the Force. The Force is everywhere, in everything. She may be Force sensitive..."

She trails off, looking distant, thoughtful, and Atty takes that moment to say, hopefully, "Maz told me she thought Hazel will be the one to find Dahlia. That has to mean something, right? I mean Maz, she sees things."

Shay sighs, exasperated. This kid is utterly clueless, isn't he? But he  _is_ cute, like a dumb little pup, and he's got a good spirit about him. She supposes that she wouldn't mind if the kid stuck around on the  _Falcon_ for a bit, perhaps on another mission...

"We could try to track the _Finalizer_ ," she supplies, hedging slightly. "See if we can't, I don't know, detect an opening or two. Hope that Hazel takes a page out of Cass' book over here and makes off with a TIE fighter. That sort of thing." 

Margy looks at her, frowning for a long moment, before she lets out a sigh. "Go. See if they can get a lock on the  _Finalizer_ , and  _then_ we'll discuss what we'll do about it." Her gaze lingers on Atty, her mouth tugging down slightly. "As for your friend... We  _will_ do what we can." 

—

In the vast, darkened assembly chamber of the _Finalizer_ , two figures stand side by side in a familiar routine. Neither of them look at one another, their attention directed forward, towards the holoprojection that wavers before them. 

"This scavenger... this  _girl_...," the Supreme Leader says slowly, his tone tinged with something akin to disgust as he stares down at Ani Ren's bent head, "Resisted  _you._ My apprentice, Master of the Knights of Ren."

There is a rebuff there, clear as day: he is reflecting poorly on the Supreme Leader. He is failing his teachings. Ani does not miss the implication, but he does not linger on trying to figure out just how Snoke will respond to this latest offense. Instead, he says flatly, "Yes. She's just a little scavenger girl from Jakku, but she's strong with the Force. Completely untrained, completely instinctual. She's stronger than she knows."

His words are measured, even; he stares directly ahead and thinks, for a moment, that he is doing fine, that he is the definition of aloof indifference. He is not sure what gives him away, but Snoke's voice is cold when he responds. "You have compassion for her."

Ani grit his teeth, nails curling into his palms. A hiss rose in the back of his thoughts, whispering,  _begging_ him to lash out, but Ani just says sharply, "No— Never. Compassion for an enemy of the Order?" He inflicts as much disdain into his voice as he can without appearing  _too_ emotional, because Ani Ren is nothing if not cold and apathetic to all things bothersome. 

"I have perceived the problem," Snoke intones frostily, "It isn't her strength that is making you fail.  _It is your weakness._ " Blood in the water, he can taste it; Ani grinds his teeth against the accusation but remains silent. " _Where is the droid?_ "

General Hux beats Ani to the punch, his voice clipped and cool as he reports, "Ren believed it was no longer of value to us." There is an undercurrent of scorn, clear distaste filtering into the air around them as he adds, pointedly, "He believed that the girl was all we need. That he could obtain from her everything necessary." The words are precise, measured, meaningful little stabs, and Ani bites back something nasty as Hux concludes, "As a result, although we cannot be certain, it is likely that the droid has been returned to the hands of the enemy."

Silence. 

Ani Ren does  _not_ turn his head to look at Hux but he really, really wants to glare at the General. Instead, he focuses on counting backwards silently, on redoubling his barriers as he feels Snoke's attention slide more fully to him once more. He can feel the prickle of displeasure on his skin, the heat of the Supreme Leader's anger, but Snoke's voice is deceptively calm when he asks Hux, "Have we located the main Resistance base?"

"We were able to track their reconnaissance ship back to the Ileenium system. We are coordinating with our own reconnaissance craft in the area in order to lock down the specific location of their base," the ginger announces, sounding superior. 

"Good," Snoke says, though he does not sound particular pleased, "And the weapon?"

"Getting closer, Supreme Leader. We estimate full operating capacity in two weeks." 

The holo shimmers as Snoke nods, full of cold satisfaction now. "Good. In two weeks, we won't _need_ their exact location. We will destroy their system instead." There is a beat of stunned silence, where even Hux seems surprised by the brutality of it, but Snoke carries on dismissively. "Both of you, out. Bring me the girl."

Ani pauses, biting the inside of his cheek before he does the exact opposite of what he  _should_ do. He steps forward and says, lowly, "No, Supreme Leader, I can get the map from the girl, and that will be the end of it. I just need your guidance."

"And you promised me when it came to destroying the Resistance you wouldn't fail me." The words are sharp as a whip, heavy with the promise that echoes in the Force, and Ani Ren tenses, taking the silent hint to step back into his place even as something rages in his gut to step  _forward_. "Hux, continue to prepare the weapon. The  _second_ it is ready, I want you to destroy that system. Ani Ren... It appears that a reminder is in order. So I will show you the dark side.  _Bring the girl to me._ "

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tfa novelization dialogue > movie dialogue and that's that  
>  ~~remember when jj abrams like totally casually mentioned that they cut the scene where kylo burned his enemies and used their ashes for the stand in the interrogation room scene? yeah, me too~~


	5. Chapter 5

She expects to be left in this room indefinitely, time trickling away around her in its own form of torment, but the door opens with a whirl not long after Ani Ren's departure. Hazel tenses, still reeling from their last encounter, and braces herself to see cold blue eyes again. 

Instead, the Knight who steps into the room is shorter, slightly more slender, his helm different.  _Younger_ , Hazel thinks, because something about the stoop of the boy's shoulders is guarded and childish, almost  _sulking_. Her gaze flickers down, tracking the line of belts and straps lacing across his all-black gear, and she catches sight of the hilt of his lightsaber at his side, the blaster tucked into a holster just below. For a frantic moment, she wonders why any of  _them_ would need a blaster, and is irrationally more uneasy with this Knight simply because he  _does_. 

She can feel him looking at her when he stops several feet away and she tries to look unaffected when she stares back. There is an energy about him that unnerves her, something that seeps deep into her bones, and she shifts slightly, uncomfortable.  _Is this the Force_? she wonders, watching closely as the boy finally turns his back towards her, arms crossed. He doesn't anything, just stares at the door, and the silence filters between them slowly. 

Hazel hates it. 

She was already on edge before she had a guest; now she can barely keep still, frustrated by the sight of an enemy that will not engage her and yet equally relieved that he is not looking at her. Her skin crawls just  _thinking_ about Ani Ren's stare, and she is not eager to have another round of confusion and fear with another Knight. She cannot begin trying to piece together the dizzying array of information that hit her when she pushed into his thoughts, or the look he'd given her before he disappeared, and she's not sure she has the energy to deal with someone else in her head now, too. 

Seconds drag on into minutes. Hazel keeps finding her gaze darting to the Knight's back, irritated that he has chosen to stand directly in front of her. She tries to keep her attention on the ceiling and the walls, tries to put the phantom chill of Ani's fingers against her cheek out of her thoughts, tries not to dwell on the confusing symphony of voices she found waiting for her in his mind. On the  _fear_ she found there. But it is hard not to dwell, and it is harder when she feels like she can still sense him at her peripheral, like a tug in her gut. 

She needs to get off this ship.

Her gaze darts back to the Knight and she chews the inside of her cheek, staring hard at him. Ani Ren had not locked her restraints back around her arms before he left, but she could never reach this boy from here, much less do anything with just her forearms free. For one absurd moment she wonders if she can  _will_  the rest open, like Ani Ren had; she had been able to push into  _his_ thoughts, hadn't she? Hazel might not know how, but she did it, and that means that she might be able to do this, too. Her brow furrows as she glances down at the straps holding her secure against the rig, struggling to concentrate. 

"Stop thinking so much," the Knight says suddenly, and Hazel jerks, her head snapping up. His voice is not modulated, she realizes — only muffled by the helm he wears. It  _sounds_ young, too, with a note of petulance. 

Hazel scowls when the shock of him speaking wears off and shifts restlessly against the rig. She has a flickering fear that he might be able to  _hear_ her thoughts, but no; Ani Ren had to be in her mind for that, so surely this boy cannot just  _sense_ them from across the room. She is fairly certain she would know if he was in her head. She finds herself chewing on the inside of her cheek as she mulls that over, not as certain as she would like to be of it, and then she pauses. 

She had been able to get information from Ani Ren. Very little, and more confusing than helpful, but information all the same. Could she do it again? Ani Ren was their leader, wasn't he? Shouldn't she be able to overpower one of his little henchmen if she could handle  _him_? 

Her attention strays back to the Knight and she furrows her brow, focuses her thoughts. She's really not sure what she's doing, but she tries to picture the cool, marble walls that had shoved her out of Ani Ren's head; she imagines that this boy must have something familiar and she  _pushes_ , willing herself to see them, to push through them, to take control, winding up all of her frustration and unease and  _throwing_ it into her will power—

The Knight's shoulders jerk, and she feels a roaring in her ears: dizzying, confusing, until she realizes that she can feel him pushing back, and there is a flare of panic. She's not sure whose it is but she shoves, wildly, and scrambles to come out on top. There is a  _shift_ , a tugging in her gut, something cold and familiar, and then she has it: she is suddenly submerged in his thoughts, fleeting things that flicker past her at the forefront of his mind, not tucked away and hidden like Ani's. 

 _What is she doing, what is she doing, master?_ flashes across her awareness, loud and clear, and Hazel shudders at the foreign feeling. 

The boy whips around to face her, his hand coming up as if to point at her, but Hazel is surged by a suddenly intuition and holds fast to his thoughts, spitting out quickly, "You will let me out of here. You will let me escape." 

His hand drops, and she feels his confusion, his panic, his disbelief. "I will  _not_ — Get out of my head!" 

She can  _feel_ him scrambling against her control, shoving and lashing out, and she winces at the sudden onslaught but refuses to be forced from his mind. She struggles to concentrate, to remain calm even if her heart is racing, and she puts all the force she can muster into her voice as she hisses, " _You will let me out. You will help me escape._ "

The Knight stills, and she pulls on his thoughts, tries to bend them to her design, her will, and there is a haziness there, now. He just stands there, looking at her, and she feels how sluggishly he is processing her words. Heart in her throat, Hazel repeats, slower, "You will let me out."

There are a few moments of paralyzing silence where she can feel  _nothing_ , as if she's been blocked out, but then the Knight starts towards her. Hazel flinches back but he gives no notice, and she can hear him now, the quiet mantra of,  _I will let her out. I will let her out._

Hazel shudders at the eerie echo and withdraws from his thoughts, marginally. She can still hear him, a faint background noise, but she can hear her  _own_ thoughts again now, too. He does not stop following her directive, silently releasing the straps that bind her, and Hazel slides to her feet cautiously. She takes a step away, wary, but the Knight is immobile, frighteningly quiet. 

Alright then. 

Her heart races as she realizes that this might actually work, that this  _is_ working, and she fumbles with her next steps. She needs to get off this ship, that much is clear, but she's not sure  _how_. Her thoughts jump to Cass, who had escaped in a TIE fighter, but he'd had Atty and surely they were watching their ships a little more closely now? She wonders if she can take an escape pod, but she's not sure  _where_ they are, not sure if she can set coordinates,  _where_ she would set coordinates too. 

Seconds tick by as she struggles to figure out what to  _do_ now, and she knows she doesn't have much time, so she lets out a shaky breath before turning on the Knight. She pushes at his thoughts and says firmly, willing her voice not to shake, "You will help me get off this ship. You will... show me the best way." 

It's a gamble. She's not sure how this works, how much time she will have, if she can give an order so indirect, but she has no other choice than to ride out this chance while she has it and see what comes of it. Her heart is in her throat and her pulse is  _thundering_ and she can barely breathe, but this is happening, this is real, and the Knight is repeating back to her, stiff and emotionless, "I will show you the best way."

He turns then, stepping sharply to the door. Hazel hesitates for a moment before stepping quickly after him, anxious not to be left behind, anxious to follow him. She tries to channel that restless energy into adrenaline as the door _whishes_ open and they are stepping into the corridor. 

The girl tenses up reflexively, but the corridor opening up around them is still and silent. The Knight is already walking away, movements jerky and precise, and Hazel follows him, warily prodding at his thoughts. She can hear the same echoing repetition of her commands filtering on a loop there, but there is also something like a plan unfolding, what  _he_ thinks is her best bet. She frowns, trying to get a better grasp of the direction of his thoughts, and gets the vaguest impression of a dock. Confused, she withdraws, and whispers, "Hurry up. You will hurry up and get me out of here  _quickly_."

"I will get you out of here quickly," he agrees and picks up his pace, strides lengthening. Hazel hurries a step behind him, a growing unease in her gut, but they continue down empty corridors uninterrupted. It strikes her as odd: where is everyone? Wasn't this a warship? 

She is tempted to demand the answer from the captive Knight, but then he is turning sharply at the end of the hall and stopping in front of an air lock. A keypad appears as he raises his hand, and Hazel watches closely as his fingers pass quickly over the numbers.  _I could take it from his thoughts_ , she thinks, oddly thrilled by the realization of the power she has in this moment, and a beat later the doors are opening. He steps through and she follows, wordless. 

They pass through a narrow chamber and then forward into another ship. It takes her a second to realize that this is a light cruiser, that it must be docked to the side of whatever ship they are on now, and she racks her brain for a moment as she tries to determine what that means. Unbidden, the answers rises to her from the Knight's thoughts: they are on the  _Jedi Killer_ , which is strictly the Knights' territory when docked. There are ships in the hangar. There is no one to see. 

Hazel pulls back, unnerved by the ease with which the information had poured across to her, and follows nervously as the Knight moves forward briskly. The thought of running into another Knight makes her blood run cold but there doesn't appear to be anyone else on board with them. It seems too good to be true, and perhaps it is, but a quick pull on her tenuous connection to the boy says that his thoughts are still occupied with his task at hand. This might actually  _work_.

The fact that it  _can't_ work doesn't fully materialize in her thoughts until they are crossing into a hangar bay and she is getting a good look at the awaiting TIE fighters. Hazel draws up short, even as the Knight keeps moving forward, hit with the abrupt realization that she doesn't know how to  _fly_ and she doesn't have a defective Stormtrooper to take with her to show her how. Her pulse skips, panic gripping her, and she breathes, "I can't fly one of these." 

There is silence. The Knight is still moving, doing something at a panel, presumably securing her ship, and Hazel swallows before stepping after him. There is no use in reasoning with someone who can't even respond, and her thoughts race as she struggles to come up with a new plan. She could demand that  _he_ suggest something different, that he find a different way, that—

She stops, a thought occurring to her, and swallows. After a moment's hesitation, desperation takes root: she can't afford to do anything else. She pushes into his thoughts again, awash in the hazy impression of her commands, in the fog that is surrounding his mind, and she says shakily, "Piloting. Show me— Show me how to pilot." 

His thoughts shift, murky, as he pauses. She senses that he is torn: he has not finished his first command yet, but the new command wins out and he turns towards her, sharp and stiff. Seconds crawl by before suddenly Hazel is being plunged straight into—

_She is holding a clunky device in both hands, weighty but light enough to hold comfortably, and she realizes it is a smaller scale flight simulator. Her fingers thumb the controls, guiding her ship into formation, and then she feels someone at her shoulder, looking down at the screen._

_"You can't learn like that," they say, and the voice shocks through her, familiar—_

_She is sitting in the cockpit of a simulator, the device replaced by the control yoke in her hands. They move of their own accord, guiding the ship through the prompted motions, basic maneuvers flashing across the simulation screen—_

_Her viewport shifts, and she is looking out into space now, a_  real _ship thrumming all around her. She is still following directives, that voice telling her what to do over her shoulder, and she smiles—_

Hazel comes back to herself with a gasp, jolting, to find that the Knight is still just standing there, rigid and still. Her thoughts whirl, struggling to process the torrent of memories that filter in among the edges, slipping into her own, bleeding into her thoughts. She pictures her task and suddenly  _knows_ , knows how to pilot this ship, and she gasps. 

It  _worked._ It worked. 

She is trembling with the apprehension of it, of the realization that she is  _right there_ , when she climbs into the cockpit. Shakily, she blurts out, "You will let me go. You will not notify anyone." 

"I will not notify anyone," the Knight echoes and steps back.

The hangar doors open as her fingers fly over the controls, fumbling through the motions as the flickering memories melt into her own, guiding her movements. She casts one last nervous glance out the viewport, towards the Knight, and then she inhales sharply and  _lifts_. 

Her stomach bottoms out in that first instant where she is  _flying_ , and then she takes another shaky breath and shoots out of the hangar bay without looking back. Her pulse is frantic, her hands shaking on the yoke, certain that the First Order will notice, certain she will be fired on, but she just has to get far enough away to hit hyperspace. 

And then she is  _there_ , and she is slamming a switch, a shaky gasp breaking its way out of her throat when she leaps into a sea of blue. 

She did it. 

She's  _out_. 

Hazel sits there for a moment, stunned, hardly able to breathe as it all slowly starts to sink in. She has felt  _so much_ in the span of hours, and she is  _overwhelmed_ , but in that moment she is— laughing, the noise startled out of her by the sheer incredulity of it all. She is laughing and crying all at once, she realizes moments later. 

When she finally comes down to herself and feels like she can breathe again, when her hands stop shaking, she thumbs through the controls until she is able to disable the homing beacon. Then she sits back, checking where she is even  _going_ , and almost laughs again when she sees that she is headed straight for the Western Reaches. 

She tilts her head back against the seat, staring up, and lets out another deep breath. For a long time she just sits there, taking the chance to try to calm down, to set her thoughts at rest. When her pulse finally feels somewhere in the range of  _normal_ , and her whirling thoughts are carefully shelved for review  _later_ , she sits forward once more and starts planning on how to get back to the Resistance. 

When she sets her hands on the controls again, Ani Ren's voice guides her through the motions at the back of her thoughts, low and familiar. 

—

In the hangar bay of the _Jedi Killer_ , Feru Ren comes to his senses. 

For a second he just stands there, blinking, thoughts crawling slowly... And then he jerks as realization settles in, as a cold wash of fear creeps up his spine and sinks into his nape. He sinks down to his knees, hands shaking, and just sits there, staring blankly ahead.

Waiting. 

—

"Sir!"

It's an officer, steps clicking sharply on tile as they rush to try to keep up with Ani Ren's quick stride, and Ani feels a spike of irritation shoot through him. It  _cannot_ possibly be important enough to interrupt him when he's on orders from  _Snoke_ , and he's about to say as much when the officer finally manages to draw pace with him and gasps out, "It's about the girl, sir." 

 _That_ gives him pause, and Ani grits his teeth as he comes to a stop. He turns on the officer and  _glares_ , thankful for once that his helm can't hide his expression. He wants the man to know that he is impatient and annoyed as he snaps, "What about the girl?"

The officer shifts his weight and Ani sees his throat bob as he says, slowly, "She... She seems to have escaped, sir." 

Ani Ren is completely and utterly still for several seconds as the words sink in. All of his thoughts slacken and still at once, a chilling calm settling over his shoulders and creeping into his voice. "My Knight was guarding her."

The man hesitates. He seems to sense the danger hovering over his head but he continues anyway, reporting warily, "Y-yes, sir. He seems to have... helped her, sir." 

The silence is deafening as Ani Ren stares at him, but the officer offers no further explanation. He just backs away a step and says, hastily, "The Supreme Leader has requested your presence, sir." There is a beat, before he snaps a quick nod and turns to disappear down the corridor, leaving Ani to stare after him. 

There is a second, and then another, before he whips around and strides for the holding cell, forcing himself not to  _run_. He will not be seen running across the ship like a kriffing idiot, but there is an urgency building in his gut, a sense of something  _wrong_ , and it takes him longer than it should have to sense that there is something  _off_ in his connection to his Knights. It takes half a second to pin the tremor in the Force to Feru, and it is in that same second that Ani is hitting the access panel to open Hazel's cell to admit him. 

He doesn't need to see it, not really; he can feel it now, the shock and terror rippling off of Feru in waves, but he still takes a slow step into the room anyway. He just stares at the empty rig for a moment, trying to picture her still there, and then he slowly curls his hands into fists as he tries to figure out  _how_ she did this,  _why_ Feru would ever help her. Absolutely none of it makes sense and he  _needs_ that map from her, now more than ever, and the frustration of it unfurls in his chest, sharp as a blade. 

He closes his eyes, struggling to reign back the wave of Darkness, the crescendo of murmurs, but he can't: it bursts in his chest, the fury, the panic, the frustration, the confusion, all of it, unraveling and unraveling as he grits his teeth together and lets out a muffled hiss. He feels the  _shift_ , the crackling roar of his temper spiraling, and when he opens his eyes again it's just in time to see the rig in front of him go up in flames. 

Ani rocks back on his heels, glaring into the flickering inferno, and then he whirls around and strides out of the chamber. He can already feel the dread building at seeing Snoke again so soon, particularly with such awful news, and the realization that  _his Knight_ did this only adds to the dawning realization that this  _cannot_ end well. Still, he grinds his teeth and shoulders past the alarmed Stormtrooper that is heading towards the burning room, knowing that he has no other choice than to answer his summons and answer  _promptly_. He has already wasted too much time, stopping to see the evidence for himself. 

His temper coils like a live wire, flickering white-hot through his veins, but there is no time for control, either. He walks briskly to the chamber and wants to  _scream_ when he senses that Hux is already there, but he just swallows the flare of fury and jerks his hand at the door, willing it open for him. His steps echo in the stony silence of the darkened room as he approaches the stand and the sound grates on his nerves but he simply comes to a sharp stop beside the General and waits, stare level with the holoprojection's shoulder. 

Silence. 

Then, very, very softly, " _Where_ is your helm, Ani Ren?"

Ani, for a moment, is so stunned that it takes him a second to respond. Of all the things— of  _all the things_ — that Snoke wants to punish him for, it's this? But no, this was deliberate, calculated; the Supreme Leader hadn't mentioned it in their meeting just before. This was a  _point_ now. He grinds his teeth together, struggling to place it, and his blood chills when he remembers that he left it in the interrogation room. Where he took it off, for Hazel. 

"Forgive me, Supreme Leader," he says, slowly, struggling to choke down the furious sense of frustration and keep it out of his voice, "I've left it some place." 

"You've  _left it some place_ ," Snoke scoffs, and suddenly Ani is collapsing down to one knee with a bitten-off gasp as a jolt of pain lances through him. "You  _will_ wear the helm. And you  _will_ bow before your master, young apprentice. Your  _insolence_ is weighing on my patience." 

His nerves are on  _fire_ , the shock-wave of agony puttering out in gradual waves, and he breathes out slowly as he smothers the rising tide of voices in his head. The Sith will him towards  _revenge_ , towards blood, resistance,  _it is the Sith's right to kill their master_ , but Ani struggles to drown them out even as his head spins in the after shocks.

"Yes, Supreme Leader," he gets out through clenched teeth, and then relaxes his jaw when he realizes Snoke can see his face, bowing his head lower. 

"General Hux," the Supreme Leader continues, voice cold and clipped, "Repeat your report." 

Satisfaction  _radiates_ off of the General, and Ani has to stare down at the floor in front of him because if he looks at the smug expression he  _knows_ is on Hux's face he's going to burn this entire room down, he's going to burn Hux, he's going to burn the  _ship_ , going to raze the entire kriffing  _galaxy_ if it means he can get at— 

"Of course, sir. My men briefed me the second I returned from your counsel and informed me of what had transpired during our meeting. That  _feral_ child of Ren's brought the girl from her cell and took her to the  _Jedi Killer_ , where upon she took a TIE fighter and escaped into hyperspace." The disdain in Hux's voice is clear and pointed but he sounds pleased when he concludes, "We have holos, sir, if you would like to see them."

Ani would  _bet_ that Hux thrilled at the prospect of rubbing the evidence in his face, and the fact just makes him angrier. He keeps his head down, however, nails biting into his palms as he forces himself not to dwell on the word  _feral_. He  _knows_ what Hux thinks of his Knights. Hux would love nothing more than for Ani to lose his cool in front of Snoke, and he will  _not_ be baited so blatantly. Still: the hissing in his thoughts climbs higher, the familiar chanting growing louder. It is taking every scrap of self control he is capable of not to lunge for the General. 

"Yes, show us," Snoke says, and Ani sees red for a moment. "Look, my apprentice. Look at what the mighty Master of the Knights of Ren has produced."

He grits his teeth and struggles to keep his expression impassive when he raises his head, turning to regard the holoprojector Hux holds in his open palm. Ani does not look up into the General's face, but instead keeps his stare level and focused, watching as the holo leaps to life in miniature. He sees Hazel first, looking washed out in holo blues, as she leans forward on the rig. And then there is Feru Ren, stepping towards her jerkily as she hisses, " _You will let me out_." 

Ani watches in frozen silence as Feru echoes her words, moving to release her. He is  _stunned_. He knew that something must have been  _wrong_ — Feru was loyal to a  _fault_ — but to think that the girl— the  _scavenger_ — was able to bend one of  _his_ Knights to her will, to force them into submission with something as simple as a Mind Trick... No, there is something not right about it, something off, something  _different_. Something about  _Hazel._  

Hazel, and the golden radiance that refuses to leave him. 

He jerks his gaze away from the hologram, even as her voice filters out, issuing new commands, echoed by Feru's muffled voice. Ani looks up at Snoke and says, lowly, "Supreme Leader, she is strong with the Force— I told you, she is stronger than she knows, but she is learning fast. That she was able to Mind Trick Feru is—"

"Testament to Feru's  _lacking_ ," Snoke cuts him off, biting and cold, and there it is again: a wave of electric agony in his veins, forcing him forward until he is on both knees, head bent. Ani's vision swims as Snoke thunders, "Testament to  _your lacking_. You, Ani Ren, Master of the Knights of Ren..." He draws it out, his tone mocking, "Heir Apparent to Lord Vader,  _Blade of the Sith_... My foolish, brash apprentice. You have  _failed_."

 _Blade of the Sith, Keeper of Souls,_ roars in his thoughts, his head  _pounding_ as Snoke's fury and the Sith's chanting bleed and run together, making him dizzy,  _Vessel of the Force, set us free, be set free, there is no failure in freedom. Wonoksh Qyâsik nun, wonoksh Qyâsik nun—_

Garbled Sith oaths rise on the back of his tongue and he chokes them back, struggling not to make a noise as he feels the Supreme Leader's attention shift away from him. It is a brief reprieve from the pain but he readily accepts it, inhaling sharply as he reigns back the howling in his head, tries to channel the pain into strength, into the Force. As he turns, Snoke commands bluntly, "General Hux. Go. See that your men find me that girl." 

"Right away, Supreme Leader," Hux says, sounding down right  _chipper,_ and Ani hisses through his teeth softly as he listens to the General's retreating footsteps. He does  _not_ want Hux's men  _anywhere near_ the girl. She is  _his_ prisoner to track down, but he says nothing. 

When the doors thud closed behind him, there is silence. And then, very slowly, Snoke says, "The map to Dahlia Coutier is in the hands of the Resistance now. The  _girl_... whom you thought so  _important_... is gone, with the help of  _your_ Knight. The weapon will not be primed for two  _weeks_. Can you imagine, boy, what the enemy will do in the two weeks that we have so kindly given them? Can you  _appreciate_ the situation you have put us in with your incompetence?" 

Something in Ani  _heaves_ with frustration, with resistance, with the urge to  _spit_ , but he just says tightly, "Yes, Supreme Leader," and stares down at the floor. 

"I have given you leniency... I  _saved_ you from that burning pit of a temple, all of you, a pack of  _children_... As my apprentice, I respected your wishes. I let you have your  _Knights_. I let you handle them because you assured me that you could," Snoke continues lowly, with a building tension, "And in return... you have proven to me that you are  _still_ just a pack of sniveling, hapless  _children_. Feru Ren lacks discipline and strength because  _you_ have failed to give it to him. Do not make me  _regret_ granting you their authority." 

Ani freezes, the latent threat in Snoke's words sinking in. In all the years that they have been with the First Order, the Supreme Leader has  _never_ once threatened to take the Knights from him. That was the  _one_ deal that Ani Ren had insisted on, had given  _everything_ for in exchange— the Knights were  _his_. Snoke would not speak to them, would not touch them; Ani would answer for them on their behalf, as their Master. Even Snoke has never crossed that line, and Snoke has crossed every other line that Ani has ever known to have in his life. That he should do so  _now_...

He clenches his fists tightly, balling them against the ground, and swallows back the wave of panic. Instead he forces his voice to remain level and even — detached — as he says, "Feru Ren's defenses have always been poor. He should never have been sent to oversee the girl. I will see to it that he build his walls. He  _will not_ remain weak, master." 

__

"That boy needs to be disciplined," the Supreme Leader intones, words laced with something sharp, "You  _will_ see to it that he is. I do not want this to become a problem, Ani Ren. Some scavenger girl, untrained in the Force, should not be besting your Knights, not be besting  _you_. Come, my young apprentice... Allow me to  _show_ you discipline." 

__

Ani grits his teeth, tensing, but nothing happens. It takes him too long to realize that Snoke meant for him to come  _closer_ , and he rises slowly to his feet, driving his nails sharper into his palms. Every instinct screams at him to refuse, to step  _away_ , but instead he steps closer, gaze trained on the Supreme Leader's flickering shoulder. He stops several paces away, shifting forward to kneel, but Snoke voice rings out, "Stop. You will stand."

__

He feels lightheaded, the sensation instant and sharp, and knows immediately that it has already begun. He braces, recognizing the haze that encompasses his thoughts as the warning signs of a walk, and struggles to focus on remaining standing as pain curls up his spine. He does not need Snoke to say it to know that  _failing_ to stay on his feet will have consequences. He cannot  _afford_ consequences when his Knights hang in the balance. 

__

"Ani Ren... You know the Memory Walk well, but pay careful attention, now. You will show young Feru the art. You  _will_ discipline that child. Heed my teachings and teach yours in turn," the Supreme Leader says, almost  _soothingly_ , and the realization that he has been directly  _ordered_ on how precisely to handle his Knight brings him more dread than the impending walk does. 

__

"Yes, master," he says tightly, curling his fists, and then he is lost in memories. 

__

—

__

 Ani Ren comes to in a silent chamber, disorientated, his thoughts sluggish and thick. He does not remember Snoke saying anything, but the Supreme Leader is gone, leaving the him to question if there had been any more commands or if there had even been  _warning_. He doesn't know. It's entirely possible Snoke had simply cut the connection when he lost interest. 

__

The only thing that matters is that he is  _gone_ , and Ani sinks forward onto his knees with a shaky exhale. He doubles over, bracing his palms against the cool marble, and heaves, pointlessly— nothing comes up but choked gasps for air, and when he finally manages to get his breathing under control he feels a little less lightheaded. 

__

He closes his eyes, struggling to concentrate, but memories rise, unbidden, still clamoring too close to the surface; Ani snaps his eyes open and forces them  _back_ , shoves them into the dark corners of his mind where they cannot reach him, out of sight, out of mind. He knows how to do this, he is  _prepared_ for this, he can put himself back together in  _moments_ if he must, and he wills that now,  _forces_ his thoughts to comply. 

__

For a moment, he feels like he is trapped there, suspended between the flickers of the past, incapable of breaking free to put them away, his thoughts too hazy and his senses dulled. And then there is that familiar light when he closes his eyes tightly again, golden and radiant and  _familiar_ —

__

(Across the galaxy, a girl reaches up to touch her cheek, a light cold and white aching in her chest—)

__

—and he is out of it, severing the flood of memories and silencing them, reigning his thoughts back under his control. His chest loosens slightly as the pressure in his head abates somewhat, and then he takes another moment to breathe before he finds the energy to push himself back up to his feet. The world spins, and his body aches with phantom pains, but Ani Ren just shakes his head to dispel the flood of dizziness. 

__

_Pain is instructive_ , he reminds himself sarcastically, but he  _does_ rely on the pain now, letting it leak into his connection with the Force and strength him. It still  _throbs_ , but he can move easier when he strides from the assembly chamber, can feel some of his exhaustion being forced away. It might not  _last_ , but it can last long enough for him to deal with Feru. 

__

His stomach drops at the knowledge of what he must do but he refuses to dwell on it, does not think about what he is doing as he heads for the  _Jedi Killer_. He can sense the younger Knight like a beacon, jittering and anxious across the ship, and he can sense the rest of the Knights, too, shifting in nervous orbit around the two of them: none of them has returned to the ship yet, likely sensing that they need to stay away, and Ani assumes they must have heard  _something_ by now. He hasn't spoken to them since they brought the girl on board, and now this. 

__

The  _last_ thing he needs to think about right now is what his Knights will say about it— about  _all_ of it— when he finally returns to them, so he doesn't. He thinks about nothing at all but putting his feet in front of one another and ignoring the exhaustion weighing down his bones. He thinks about getting this over with so that he can promptly pretend it never happened. 

__

Feru Ren is on his knees in the hangar bay, shoulders rounded and head bowed as he stares down at his hands in his lap, his helm discarded. He does not lift his head as Ani approaches, but he flinches, and the ripples of terror and guilt ripple through the Force. When Ani stops, the boy suddenly slumps forward, hiding his face against Ani's knee as he whimpers, "Master, I don't..."

__

Something in Ani withers, but he  _cannot_ afford to back down, not now. He rests a hand on Feru's hand, staring down at the boy, and tries not to think about anything at all. "She is strong, Feru. I should have given warning. I should have made sure they sent someone else. Your weakness... is my fault." 

__

It grates, forcing the words out, but he  _must_. Feru whines, curling his fingers into Ani's pants, and mumbles, "I don't know how she... She felt like  _you_ , master." There is something desperate and broken in the boy's voice as he presses closer, words muffled, and Ani has to lean forward slightly to avoid being knocked off balance, frozen by the admission. "She... It was like... It was like our meld, and it felt like  _you_ , and she was just... there." 

__

Ani Ren's thoughts are racing, struggling to piece together what that  _means_ , struck by the realization that he had been right: there was something more to it, more than just a novice girl attempting a Mind Trick, there was something  _else_ there. But he has no idea what the kriff it means and it wouldn't change anything if he did. 

__

"Your shields have always been your weakness," he says after a moment, his fingers curling into fists in his reluctance, and he realizes belatedly that he has pulled Feru's hair. He relaxes his grip and says, slow and even, "We will work on them. I will help you build them, Feru, but first... The Supreme Leader believes that you will learn best from his own methods." The words claw the inside of his throat on the way out, and he feels Feru tense, the spike of fear, and struggles not to give into fury rising in his gut as he grates out, "We'll do a Memory Walk." 

__

Feru is silent, but his fingers curl tighter and his Force signature flares with terror. Ani tries not to notice it as he pushes the boy's head back slightly, making Feru look up at him, and exhales at the dark, miserable eyes that peer up at him. His voice drops, quieter, as he adds, "You won't remember this, after. I won't let you. But you will know it in the moment."  _I'm sorry._

__

He knows that Feru heard him from the way he nods, faintly, before shifting back to sit on his hunches, still gripping onto Ani's legs with both hands as he waits. The boy is  _trying_ to look determined, but Feru has never had a good poker facer. The look on his face now is worse than the lingering ache in his skull; the look on his face is worse than the crackle of electricity in his veins. The look on his face is _broken_.

__

Ani closes his eyes, shutting it out as he lets their connection open up, and reminds himself that Feru won't  _remember_. 

__

But he will. 

__

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [feru ren inspo](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/591592956364980237/592359934356619291/tumblr_inline_p3khipGIwY1r6pte4_1280.png)


	6. Chapter 6

She is dreaming. 

The world is fuzzy, indistinct, too  _quiet_ — as if all of the air has been sucked from the room, as if the world is too pressurized, as if she will never be able to hear anything again. Her ears pop, and everything rushes in at once, sound reverberating through her core. But she is only dreaming, eyes closed, and she cannot see what she suddenly hears; instead she teeters on the edge of consciousness, half in and half out of the dream, with movement shuffling — somewhere — on the edge of her peripheral. 

Light steps. The rustle of clothes. The rise and fall of murmuring voices. 

And then, suddenly, the shock of fingers on her cheek, cool and slender. She turns away from the touch, tries to burrow deeper into the soft silk of her pillow, back into sleep. There is another flutter of movement as someone kneels down beside her, pushing those fingers up into her hair, tugging slightly. The light noise of protest that sounds in the back of her throat is familiar and yet not. 

A girl speaks, drawing her out of her dreams, closer to awareness. Her presence becomes more real, more clear, the world coming into sharper focus as Hazel comes to, slowly. Some of the hazy darkness of sleep fades away, shapes those sounds into words, something coherent. 

"— _a_ _st_ ," the girl is murmuring, voice smooth and sweet like honey as she gives another pull on her hair, " _Get up. It's time._ "

She sighs and slits her eyes open, reluctant—

—and blinks out across the vast expanse of space, streaming jets of blue filtering past endlessly. She is alone in the cockpit, but for a second she feels like she shouldn't be. It nags at her, the distinct remnants of her dream already falling away, but then she shakes her head and sits forward to check the monitors. She doesn't remember falling asleep, but she is grateful all the same: she feels more alert, the exhaustion and panic stabilized into a low undercurrent as opposed to the raging flood they had been before. She cannot even begin to wonder what a wreck she would be if she'd spent her time worrying away in this tiny space, just her and the stars and her own anxiety. 

Somehow, the weight against her chest has been lifted; she feels like she can breathe easier now, distanced from the chaos of her life by a scant few hours of darkness, suddenly able to exist in something other than confusion and fear. It is easier when she is alone, she thinks: she has spent her entire life alone, fending for herself, and when it is just her and the stars she feels more at home than she had on the  _Falcon_. She is not racing towards more violence, not yet; she has no real destination waiting other than the indistinct notion of getting back to the Resistance, somehow. It is... nice. Peaceful. She feels like she has rebooted her systems. 

She can even think back to the First Order without her pulse speeding or her heart contracting with panic. 

That way lies a confusing flood of emotion, though, and Hazel doesn't want anything to do with it. She can't think back to the foreign ship without thinking of Ani Ren's fingers pressed against her cheek, about the tangled knot of thoughts she'd found in his head, the way he'd  _looked_ at her—

—and the echoing scrape of his voice, low and laughing, filtering through the memories she had stolen and ringing in approval as he guided her through flight patterns. 

Hazel shoves everything to do with the First Order away into the corner of her mind and struggles to focus on her task ahead instead. She needs to find the Resistance and tell them what she knows, but first and foremost she needs to figure out where she is. Still in hyperspace, clearly, and still making for the Western Reaches, but a quick check on the navigation system confirms that she has only been asleep for little more than an hour. There is still a ways to go before she will be in familiar territory, which is a good amount of time to toy with the comms and see if she can find a way to alert the Resistance of her location without alerting anyone else. It is unlikely when she knows nothing of the Resistance's channels or procedures, but she  _does_  know that they have people scattered across the galaxy...

"I'll find them," she whispers to herself, wracking her brain for anything she can remember Shay or Cass mentioning as she pulls up star charts, scanning the half-familiar planet names of her home region. She's not sure that they ever mentioned exactly  _where_ they were going in search of the Resistance, and now that Takodana has been discovered she's not sure where else to go. Back, maybe, to see if Maz was still around to point her in the right direction? 

No. She had already been caught once on that green, leafy planet; she shudders to think of encountering  _them_ again in that forest, and quickly pushes aside the notion. No, she needs to go somewhere else, somewhere with information. Her gaze flickers to Jakku's glowing name over and over, her chest constricting with the urge to just go  _home_ , forget all of this, but she refuses. She can't, not yet. Jakku won't have the information she is looking for, but it might be a good planet to lurk around while she figures out what to do... 

Hazel worries her lower lip between her teeth and then sighs, swiping at the map until the familiar planet disappears off screen. Instead, she studies the remainder of the Western Reaches, squints at the dotting planets along the Inner Rim and waits for something to resonate with her. For one foolish moment she even thinks that that feeling— the  _Force_ — will hum and shake, guiding her in the right direction, but nothing happens and the longer she stares into the map the more ridiculous she feels. 

Flushing in embarrassment at herself, she swipes until the navcharts disappear and accesses the comms instead. Foreign connections flash across the screen, distracting, but what she is after is the Holonet, and soon she is studying the range of channels and adverts and pointless communication spiraling out across the galaxy. Hazel is not so naive as to think the Resistance will have a public announcement advertising their location, but maybe she can find a secret message or two, some discreet supporters slipping communiques into the void. She just has no idea where to start. 

Blowing out a sigh, Hazel leans forward and starts to search at random. 

—

Ani Ren ducks under a shoddy excuse for a punch and steps fluidly to the side, giving into the vicious impulse to show the soldier what a  _real_ hit looks like: the hilt of his saber flips over his wrist, quick and easy, and when he punches the man in the jaw it is with the sharp edge of his saber hilt clenched in a reverse grip, shattering bone. He twists, stepping into the movement, and the crackling blade follows in a sharp arc a moment later, finishing the blow in one fluid movement. 

The soldier slumps at his feet but he is already stepping over the carnage, blood roaring and spitting with the kill. It is not  _enough_ — there will never be enough to satisfy the feral hunger igniting in his veins, never enough violence that he can inflict on this Force forsaken planet, and the frustration of it all crackles and snaps along the blade of his saber as his temper soars. Electric sparks spit and Ani grinds his teeth in irritation, slashing through another row of soldiers who fail to heed the warning that the darksaber emits. 

And that is all he knows in the moment, an endless of sea of blood and death and the ominous hum of his weapon as surrenders himself to the current of  _fury_ that hasn't quite left him since leaving Feru. It is a nasty, festering thing in his heart, the storm of anguish and anger and grief, of something  _raw_ , and the Sith howl as he feeds it and feeds it and  _feeds it_. Lives wink out, blimps in the Force, and chanting echoes in his skull. He answers the shouting with another slash of his wrist, another death. 

Awareness crackles at the back of his thoughts as he comes out of another spin, bodies falling around him in a half-circle as he raises his blade, quick, and finds himself locked against Jus Ren's strike. They have moved in parallel, turning into one another's orbits as they struck down their enemies, and recognition flares across the bond that links them all across the battlefield like the scattered remnants of a constellation. There is an eerie stillness as they regard one another over the heat of their sabers, black smoldering against red, and in that moment Ani  _feels_ the silent regard, the momentary flare of tension, what they both know hangs unspoken between them, all of them, the tight knot of  _something_ that bleeds out in the Force, and he clenches his grip tighter on the hilt, waiting. 

Anger rushes like a roar and then fades as Jus takes a neat step back, disengaging. The Knight is stoic, silent, angling his blade straight up before his helm and slashing it down to the side, a perfect Makashi salute; it is sardonic, but it is familiar, it is  _them_ , and the tension fades in a snap as Ani nods in return and flips his saber over his wrist, readjusting his grip. As one, they turn back-to-back, braced for the new onslaught of soldiers, and there is nothing but blood and death and chanting once more. 

They make quicker work of the deed together, moving in tandem, and it almost feels  _right_ when Jus side-steps a reckless charger and Ani is there to drive his saber into the man's gut. He twists the blade with a flare of viciousness and then jerks back, shaking the dead weight off with a curl of his lip. But that roaring won't leave him, and nothing is quite  _right_ any more as he moves on. He loses all track of time after that, if he ever had track of it at all. 

They've nearly reached the battered remains of the Mindabaalite fortress when Muta Ren finally catches up to them, his presence in the force and their bond suddenly so much  _louder_ as he falls into step at Ani's side as if he'd been there the whole time. Their shoulders jostle as Muta bumps him, deliberate, and a flare of irritation crackles up his spine as he shoves the Knight back, not in the mood to play. There are still people shooting at them, for Force's sake, and he narrowly deflects the lobby of blaster bolts aimed in their direction.

"These guys just don't know when to call it quits, do they?" Muta yells over the din, sounding positively cheerful as he leans into Ani's side, avoiding an ill-placed swipe of a sword, and cuts the assailant down. "Shitty losers, that's what I say! What ever happened to a good old fashioned surrender?"

Ani bites back the urge to shove Muta over and steps away, intent on just getting this over with, and he sees Jus flanking his other side as they advance on the fortress. The Knight's voice is dry and cold as he returns, "We don't accept surrenders, idiot." 

"Then they should die honorably," Muta quips back, undeterred, and Ani can feel his headache redoubling, his patience wearing thin. The Sith urge him to just kill them all, kill everyone and his Knights too, and his nerves fray as he keeps moving forward, dispatching the last row of defense with the brutal efficiency that comes with his Knights being beside him once more. He suffocates the wild thrashing of his anger, buries it deep under wraps as best as he can, because they are here now and they've finally reached the kriffing objective. 

He can  _feel_ that Muta is about to speak again when they cross the threshold, mostly likely to make some other idiotic comment to "lighten" the tension, but Jus must have the same impression as Ani because he says, flatly, "Shut up, Muta." 

"Let's just get this over with," Ani snaps, uninterested in hearing either of them speak — if they speak, they'll be forced to acknowledge it — as he strides ahead through the halls. He feels restless and caged, skin too tight and fury too big, but he can choke it back, ignore it; he'd had his blood and now it was time to move on. Jus and Muta follow without another word, the stone halls eerily silent with no one left to defend them, and there is no one to stop them from taking their prize. 

Lord Ortell Donovan is waiting for them when they enter the great hall, standing in front of the dais with his arms crossed and his back to them. He turns when Ani strides forward, Jus and Muta stopping just within the entrance, and Ani discovers that Ortell is just as much a proud fool as everyone claimed him to be. He could have fled, could have posted guards in this very room, could have done so many things, but instead he just stands there in soft breeches and a thin doublet that would do absolutely nothing to protect him. He is no older than Ani, at best, and yet he studies them like a king receiving ordinary guests. In a way, he is. 

Ani draws to a stop several paces away, regarding the young king, and then bites out a sarcastic, "Lord Donovan."

Ortell inclines his head, gaze flickering briefly to the Knights waiting at the back of the room, and returns flatly, "Lord Ren." There is a strained pause, and then he smiles. "Or is it Lord Mikaela?"

Fury snakes up his spine and crackles along the edge of his saber, sparks flying, but Ani chokes it back with an icy control. His voice comes out cold and measured, warped by the modulator, when he says, "What you call me won't change anything."

"I imagine you've killed my men," the king says after a moment to consider that, his mouth tight, but he doesn't look away. "Tell me, then, what does the First Order want? I have little else for you to demand."

And here is the true cruelty of it, the viciousness that twists in Ani's gut, unsettled and unmoored: there is no reason. There is absolutely nothing that the First Order could want with Ortell, or his people, or this forsaken little planet of theirs. There is a senselessness to this assignment, this killing, that is harsh and bitter and terrible in its reality. They've died for nothing, died to prove a _point_ that the Supreme Leader wanted to make. Ani knows it. The Knights know it. And Ortell does, too.

Still, he says it, words clipped. "We don't need anything from you. We have your planet, now. You're useless."

Lord Donovan nods, and then he tilts his chin up higher and waits. Ani looks at him for a moment, at the defiance in the set of his jaw and the acceptance in the tension of his shoulders, and can see him as a king. A proper king, with more years of ruling than a handful. He can see the potential that sits there, in this boy. 

And then he turns to the side, lifting his blade in a straight line, and flicks the fingers of his off-hand. The Force hums and flares around them, ensnaring Ortell and pulling the king forward, quicker than he can register and struggle against. The saber sinks into his chest without resistance, crackling and roaring, and Ani watches as that potential is snuffed out, as the king's eyes widen just slightly and then close. For a moment there is nothing but silence, the growling of the Sith in his head, and the echoing sense of void. Then he tilts his wrist down, angling the blade at the floor, and lets the king slump before he turns and walks away. 

"Time to go," he says flatly, striding through the doors, and his Knights fall into step behind him without comment. The roaring in his ears is so loud, the stifling weight of it so heavy that he can hear nothing else; he cannot sense them in the Force, not even through their battle meld, and he is thankful. He doesn't want to deal with their thoughts any more than he wants to deal with his own. Blessedly, all is silent as they move, and the silence stretches even when they step outside and get a chance to really look out over the bloodshed they've left in their wake: bodies upon bodies dotting the desert sand, the perfect stillness of post-battle destruction. Ani ignores it all and keeps moving. 

He doesn't break stride until they are near their transport, and even then it is only because a surge of warmth strikes through him all at once. He stops as gold erupts across his vision, dazzling until he blinks it away, and his head jerks up as he stares up into the sky. The Force hums, something twisting tight in his chest, and when he exhales it is with the sudden certainty that  _she_ is here. Close. The awareness of her shudders through him, drips like honey on the back of his tongue, and the crackling tremble of anger silences all at once. He has no space for it when she's there to fill every sensation, and when he opens his eyes again he is carrying on resolutely, distantly aware of his Knight's having stopped, too.

"The girl is here," he says shortly, yanking his helm off as he heads for the cockpit. He throws it down a hallway, aimless, and calls over his shoulder, "She's in this system, somewhere, and we're going to go get her. Now."

He wasn't expecting an argument, but he is relieved when he doesn't get one any way. 

—

In the end, she is far, far luckier than she has any right to be. She thinks that the Force might have something to do with it after all, because the obscure hint left behind in a smuggle's message from Nar Shaddaa points her to trade channel that deals mostly in code and sly clues, with offers bouncing around from all corners of the galaxy offering anything and everything one could want. She finds  _several_ suggestive adverts promising information on Resistance whereabouts, and several more on  _First Order_ dealings, and every last one is as unnerving and slimy as the last, but she considers them. When it comes down to it, though, what turns out to be her saving grace is a grouchy trader claiming that Shay Hart isn't answering his comms and that he is looking for information on  _the slimy scoundrel's whereabouts._

The brief conversation with the Guavian Death Gang is every bit as awkward and uncomfortable she thought it would be, but Hazel does not have  _time_  to pursue a safer, less nauseating option. She needs a way to flag the _Falcon_ , and it is not so difficult a thing to claim that Shay Hart will answer her comms if only they give her the frequency because she has something that the smuggler needs. It's true, after all. Just not quite in the way that she implied, she supposes. Regardless, she fails to feel bad about it when the comms sing to life, Shay's voice guarded and firm as it crackles over the channel. 

" _What's the First Order doing flagging an old garbage freighter? We ain't got nothing to do with you."_

Hazel feels like  _sobbing_ with relief, her breath catching in her throat at her luck and then punching out at her all at once in a weak, "Shay."

There's a moment of silence, and then, "Kid? Holy shit, Hazel, is that you?"

The girl finds herself nodding, throat tight at the relief she hears in Shay's voice, and then she is remembering that the smuggler can't see her. "Yes, yes, it's me— I stole a ship, got out—"

"Easy, kiddo, slow down," Shay breaks in, and then laughs throatily, "Stars, am I glad you're okay, kiddo. We were coming after you. Where are you now? How'd you get out of there?" There's a rustle, and then the woman sounds both more distant and louder all at once as she calls, "Atty boy! Get over here." 

"Atty's okay?" Hazel asks, pulse jumping, and she feels a flood of relief. She had thought he must be, but the confirmation is a wave of reassurance she had needed. "I'm in hyperspace, headed back towards the Western Reaches. I... I got a ship." For some reason, the explanation as to  _how_ lodges in the back of her throat, and she can't bring herself to admit it. It feels  _wrong._

"Hazel? Hazel!" comes Atty's voice suddenly, loud and hopeful and happy, and she collapses back in the pilot's seat with a sigh at the sound of it. "What happened? What did they do to you? Are you okay?"

There are notes of concern and accusation all wrapped up in his voice, a flare of anger, and Hazel bites down on the inside of her cheek. It feels wrong, for him to be so worried about her, so worried about what the Knights would do. Somehow it clashes with the feeling of Ani's palm against her cheek and the stark anger and terror she had felt squirming in the Knight when she bent him to her will and even beneath all that there is the resolute knowledge that she doesn't really deserve to have someone else worry so much on her behalf. She is just a scavenger; he doesn't even know her. It is all uncomfortable and warming and distressing all at once, a vicious knot of emotion, and she finally forces out, "Nothing, I... Asked me questions. I got out, I'm okay, I'm not hurt."

"Alright, kiddo, we're gonna come get you," Shay breaks in, her tone gruff but soothing, "We can go over all of this when you're safe, okay? The Western Reaches are a bad place to be right now, after Jakku, but we're not too far off. Damn, I thought you'd be closer to the Unknown. Where are you supposed to pop out?"

Hazel reads off the coordinates hastily, relieved not to be dwelling on what she will say to them, how she will explain, and then she bites her lower lip. "I'll be there any moment, really. How soon can you be here? Where should I meet you?"

Shay makes a considering noise, and she can hear Atty's voice somewhere in the background, but not his words. After a beat, Shay says, "Right by Donadus and Mindabaal, huh? Ortell's a good kid, he could help you. This baby's fast, but it's still gonna take us a few hours to get to you, kiddo. You'll want to hunker down, get off the grid. Have you disabled the trackers?"

"Yes," she murmurs, at a loss as to who Ortell is, but she doesn't question it. She glances at the monitors again and adds, "They can't find me without them, right?" 

"No, they can't," Atty says, suddenly closer to the commlink again, sounding confident and almost forceful. "That's a standard starfighter you stole; it won't have any fancy homing beacons on it." 

The knot of worry in her chest eases and she finds that she can relax, if barely. "Okay. Okay, good. Where should I—"

She comes out of hyperspace all at once, the stars that had been shooting past coming to a standstill, and it is jarring in its suddenness. A foreign planet looms in the distance, and when she turns, startled, she sees another, further away. But the shock of reaching her destination is not what stops her heart; no, that is the familiar chill that races down her spine, the blooming white light that burns in her chest. She shudders, a whimper catching in her throat, and scans the void around her desperately. 

It was impossible. He couldn't be—

"Hazel?" Shay's voice crackles over the comm, sounding faintly alarmed, "What's up, kiddo?" 

"I—" she starts, and then swallows past how dry her mouth is and forces herself to focus. She is imagining it, that's all. "I'm— here. I can see a planet, and another, and I feel..." She hesitates, uncertain, and then says rapidly, "The one closer, it's— um, red, and yellow."

"Donadus," Shay confirms, still sounding wary, "You alright, Haze? You should head to Mindabaal; we've got friendlies there."

"It just surprised me," she says after a moment, struggling to drown out the eerie sense that a lasso was tightening around her and pulling harder and harder.  _Just nerves_ _,_ she tells herself, and wills her voice steady. "I'll... Yeah, I can see it, I'll go there." 

"Good. Good, kiddo. Don't worry, Ortell's a friend. He's the guy to know on Mindabaal," the smuggler assures, and Hazel thinks she can hear Atty talking in the background again, voice distance but comforting in its familiarity. "When you reach planetfall, you let us know. Or we'll just stay on with you, okay? Everything's gonna be fine now."

She feels like ice is spreading down her back, a tug in her gut urging her to move, to go  _somewhere_ , but she struggles to focus on Shay's words. She's right, isn't she? They can't track her, and Shay and Atty will be here to get her from Mindabaal soon, and everything will be fine. Yeah, fine. Hazel leans forward, scanning the controls, and murmurs, "Mindabaal, okay. I can do that." 

The cord squeezing her heart tightens painfully and then  _snaps_ , and her ears ring with a hollow resonance. Hazel jerks, gaze snapping up, and finds herself staring out the viewport straight at the  _Jedi Killer_. It is impossible, and horrible, and her mind struggles to comprehend it even as the assurance that it is  _him_ pounds in her chest, white light pulsing in her corners of her vision. She opens her mouth on a gasp, gaping for a moment, and then her nerves all crackle to life at once. 

"Change of plans," she gasps out, slamming her hands on the controls and whipping the tiny ship around, her throat starting to constrict with panic. How did they find her? How was he here? "They're here, they found me, can't go to Mindabaal—"

" _What?_ " explodes across the comm, and Hazel isn't sure if it's Shay or Atty or both, but she doesn't care. She has to get  _away_ , and she thumbs a switch before slamming the lever that will take her back into the sanctuary of hyperspace forward. She doesn't have enough fuel to keep running forward, and can't clear the galaxy, but she can get  _away_ , and her pulse is still thumping wildly when she feels the ice-cold awareness fade away. It isn't until it's gone that she realizes that Shay is still speaking over the commlink, urgent and rushed. 

"Hazel, girl, I need you to respond, who found you? How? What's going on over there, kiddo? Hazel—"

"I'm here, I'm okay, they... the Knights, they found me, I don't know how. I jumped. I don't know where, just away," she explains in a rush, cutting in, and struggles to even out her scattered pulse.  _Just_ when she had started to relax, to feel like everything was going to be okay, he destroyed it all again. Anger and fear flare in her chest as she says, a touch desperate, "I can't get too far with this much fuel, Shay, I don't know what to do."

There is a heavy pause, and then Shay is saying lowly, "Look, kiddo, I know you're scared but they must have just gotten lucky. They can't track you through hyperspace, it's impossible. I want you to look at where you're going, and check if there's a planet you can hide out on. You need to ditch that ship now that they know it's you. Okay? Can you do that, Hazel?"

Easy, simply directions. Can she do that? Can she? Something shudders through her, and then she is nodding jerkily, and then saying, "Yes, yeah, I'll... Yes. I can."

"Good. Good, Hazel. Okay, I'm going to call the Princess and let her know what's going on. Will you be alright for a bit? I'll check back with you right away. Okay?" 

 _No_. "Yes, that's okay, I'm alright," Hazel forces out, willing her pulse not to spike even more. 

"Cool. Alright, kiddo. Just figure out where you're going," Shay repeats, and then the comm goes dead. Hazel stares at it for far too long, still shaking slightly in her seat, and then she shifts the screen away to find the navcharts and check her monitors. Her hands shake. 

But she'll be okay. She got out, and she got away, and she got away again, and Shay is coming for her. Atty is coming for her. The Knights can't find her again.

She'll be okay. 

—

Victa Ren is waiting on the bridge when Ani arrives, jet black hair wet and slicked back out of her face. The scar hugging her eye seems starker like this, with no loose hair to obscure it, the bright gold of the broken iris gleaming as she tilts her chin up to look at him. He ignores her and the words stuck on her tongue, the things she is dying to say, and strides across the threshold to find Sacra and Deco waiting at the viewport. Feru is no where to be seen, and that grinds against his nerves, too. 

"We picked up on the ship, master," Victa says from behind him, steps quick to catch up to his side, and there is something snide and prodding about the way she uses that title. Ani can  _feel_ her daring him to say something, to call her out on it, but when he doesn't she carries on. "We got her."

"Then why are we still here?" he snaps, temper flaring briefly, and he catches Sacra narrowing her eyes at him. Her judgement crawls over his skin, sinking in deep, backed by the calm assurance that what she judges to be truth  _must_ be the truth because she found it so. It's kriffing annoying, and he flashes her a sharp glare but says nothing. There is too much to be said between them, all of them, and now is  _not_  the time that they are going to have this conversation. 

"Just waiting for you," Deco says, calm and casual, cutting through the tension with ease as he steps forward to fiddle with the controls. He is wearing the narrow-rimmed spectacles that only appear in the safety of the _Jedi Killer_ , only when it is just them. They slide down his nose as he looks down at the monitors, and then he is looking back up as they jump. 

It is not a long one by any means; they are in and out of hyperspace in a moment, blue light flashing in a wink, and then they are staring out across space at the distant shape of Donadus and at the lonely, solitary starfighter sitting in the vacant zone just before them. Victa lets out her breath in a rush and gives hushed, delighted, " _Gotcha._ "

Golden warmth erupts and crackles in Ani's chest as he stares out at the ship,  _knowing_ that Hazel is there, sensing her acutely, and for a moment he is immobile. He can sense the Knights thrumming with energy all around him, their Force signatures bouncing against each other and against him, a feedback loop tying them all together, but he blocks it out. He doesn't want to feel the spike in bloodlust that surges momentarily, the clear call for vengeance. 

 _She wronged us_ , he can hear whisper in the depths of their bond, coming from no one and all of them,  _She did this to Feru._

Ani inhales deeply, pushing out their hostility, their eagerness, and sets his shoulders back. They need to get her, regardless. No blood; he won't hurt her, and neither will they, but they need to get her—

He wasn't sure what he was honestly expecting, but almost as soon as he thinks it, her little fighter is whipping around and disappearing into hyperspace. For a moment the abruptness of it stuns him into silence, and he can feel an equal measure of  _seriously?_ reflected back to him from the Knights, but it is quickly replaced by anger. Irritation and frustration itches through his blood and he bites, hard, at the inside of his cheek.  _Force it._ The tether looping around his heart, burying its hooks in his chest, eases; she's gone far enough that he can't sense her, not so clearly. 

"Stupid girl," Victa snarls from behind him, and Ani clamps down on the urge to curl his lip. He can hear the others shifting restlessly, the tension crackling higher as Muta and Jus finally join them on the bridge, still blood-splattered and dusty. It's like a live-wire, bursting in the air around them. 

Ani turns, staring out the viewport towards Donadus, and exhales slowly. His nerves are shot, blood on fire, headache pounding; the frustrated impatience radiating from the others is driving him closer and closer to losing it, to lashing out, and he itches for an outlet that isn't the ship walls. "Forget it. We have her on a string, now that we've got her once. Let her run for now. We still have orders."

Several gazes snap to him, and Ani keeps his expression impassive. Victa whirls, looking incredulous, and hisses, "But she—"

_No._

The order arches between them, vicious but forceful, snapping across their shared meld. The younger Knight glares up at him, her mouth pressed together tightly, and Ani keeps going in a low, measured tone before she can make the mistake of protesting again, "We have orders on Donadus, and Walalla, and Tasariq. We will follow them." He lifts his gaze, flickering it over the others, taking in the blank expressions that look back. "Victa, you'll join us this time."

She goes still, looking up at him, and something in her posture relaxes. He waits. After a moment the tension fades, the fight washing over into something like barely repressed eagerness. Her mismatched eyes glow as she turns to look out towards the planet awaiting them, and Ani ignores the glance Sacra shoots in his direction. 

Victa has energy she needs to burn off, too, and Donadus was not so much a populated planet these days. He refuses to doubt the decision as he adds, "Jus, Muta, take a break. Deco will come." There is another bout of silence, and then he adds, "Get us closer, Sacra. We're off in five."

He doesn't wait to see if they comply; he knows they will. Instead he just turns away and strides back the way he came, back towards the transport and the promise of bloodshed. 

He doesn't need to look back to know that Victa and Deco are following.


	7. Chapter 7

Victa Ren is no fool.

She knows a ploy when she sees one, and she knows with absolute certainty that inviting her on this raid was a ploy; she knows that _Ani_ knows that few things could silence her and curb her attitude as well as the promise of violence. This run is a distraction from the kriffing disaster with Feru.

Just because she is willing to let Ani do it doesn’t mean she isn’t aware that he’s doing it. It’s just that she is, in fact, willing.

“We’re going to talk about it,” Victa huffs pointedly into her mask, looking sideways at Ani as he studiously ignores her. Deco angles a look at her behind their master’s back but stays silent.

His presence, too, is a ploy. Everyone knows Deco is the ultimate neutral party in any conflict and especially unlikely to take her side, regardless of his own feelings on a matter. Victa might consider him a traitor if he wasn’t so kriffing nice.

“We’re going to talk about it,” she repeats, louder, just to make her point. And then she falls into position at Ani’s left shoulder, flexing her grip on her whip and allowing herself a quick, smug smile when she sees Ani finally nod out of the corner of her eye.

The hum of the ship rumbling under their feet fills the lull of silence. Victa waits a few precise seconds, basking in her victory and tucking away her frustration, and then she turns her head towards Ani again.

“Hey,” she says, nodding towards the hangar door, “Race ya.”

She can hear Deco’s groan in the face of the one topic he will _not_ claim neutrality on, but she chooses to ignore him. She waits instead, staring intently at Ani, analyzing the tense line of his shoulders and the slight tip of his head that says he is considering saying _no_ because Ani in these moods _always_ says no.

She watches as he wavers and then shrugs, glancing at her briefly before he leans up to rap his knuckles twice against the top of the loading bay. A moment later he says briefly into his comm, “Dip us.”

A surge of delight shoots through Victa as she grins wildly, uncaring all at once about everything that she has to be furious about. Deco's sigh of defeat echos through the chamber, but she is already adjusting her stance and dropping her center of gravity as the ship starts to tip and angle downwards. The rest of the galaxy doesn't matter right now, because this — watching the bay door start to lower slowly, tracking Ani's movements out of the corner of her eye as he shrugs off his cowl and rolls his saber around his wrist lazily —  _this_ is familiar. 

Victa can picture so many different landscapes appearing in the gap as the door lowers; flashes of different planets, different training exercises, different  _times_. Times when she was happier; times when she was angrier; times when she was younger and freer and lighter; times when she was aching and lost and tired. No matter what, she can always come back to this moment — this echo of a moment — and remember that she and Ani are who they always were. No matter what. 

Then the land below sharpens into focus, and she sees the swaths of drown dust and hard desert grounds as the ship tips at a more extreme angle and starts to glide downwards. They are not nearly close enough for a clean landing, not just yet, but that isn't the point of it at all. 

"I'll beat you there, old man," Victa chirps into the humming quiet, and as soon as Ani turns his head to look at her she is darting forward and sliding through the opening gap of the bay. The air rushes around her, crisp and hot, and delight rises in her throat as she whoops victoriously on the descent. She can feel Ani following her, sees the flash of black beside her as he falls through the air, but Victa has the advantage of surprise, here; she yells out as she hits the ground in a roll, springing nimbly to her feet, and takes off towards the outpost before Ani can slide to a stop beside her. 

The onslaught of blaster bolts is nearly immediate. She ducks and slides under the incoming blasts, whip slashing through the air to deflect them, and ignites a tonfa in her right hand as she charges the first wave of defense. Her blade slices through them cleanly, clearly the way for her as she runs straight ahead, and she leaves the leftovers for Ani in her wake mercilessly. 

No one ever said she was above cheating, after all. 

She beats him to the outpost with seconds to spare, skidding to a stop and whipping around to watch as Ani follows in her wake. He is a blur of black robes, twirling calmly through the rebels she left for him, and she feels absolutely no remorse for waiting by when they fall easily under his glittering darksaber. He deserves the extra work, in her opinion. 

"You got Ortell," she points out primly when he strides towards her, twirling the hilt of his saber over his wrist and readjusting his reverse grip. "As my prize for beating you, I want the pirate." If the rumors were true that the Chorran shipjackers still operated out of Donadus, Victa would take great joy in calling herself a pirate slayer. Perhaps she could even claim to be the captain, for taking down  _their_ leader. 

She feels Ani's exasperation through the bond, but she can also feel how the thick energy clinging to him has eased somewhat, relaxing in the wake of the brief fight. She already knows she has won when he shakes his head and steps past her into the outpost, tossing over his shoulder, "Be my guest, critter." 

Smug delight marks her delight as the Knight turns to follow, the light of her tonfa winking out as she clips it back into her belt. She feels like the whip is best suited for this kill; it is... cooler. More deserving of an illicit pirate gang in hiding.

They'll remember her name for millennia. 

—

It is not the best landing in the galaxy, but it is not the worst. Luckily for Hazel, there is nearly nothing on the planet  _to_ hit: the plains stretch out before her in barren white swaths, yielding nothing and no one, and for a moment she just sits there and stares out of the viewport in perplexed dismay. This was not quite the sort of world she was hoping to land in when she first set out to find shelter and a new ship. 

Frustration and despair wells in her chest, but she struggles to push it down. This is fine. She is fine. She could only see a small portion of the planet from her current seat in the cockpit; sure, it had all looked relatively bare and empty from space, but that... didn't mean anything. Surely there must be  _some_ form of civilization, and she had the Force on her side. Maybe. 

Hazel breathes in slowly, struggling to calm her rapid heartbeat, and closes her eyes. She tries to feel the Force around her, all the tiny traces of energy humming through the planet around her, struggles to pick up on those little hints of life. Something icy unravels in her chest and for a moment she panics, but that is all there is: no resounding flash on the  _Jedi-Killer_ coming out of the blue up above. Ani is too far away, even if she swears she can still feel him, and she struggles to ignore the slithering unease creeping up her spine as she strains her senses. 

It occurs to her that she has  _no idea_ what she is doing. 

She tries harder. 

She sits there for ages, squirming in her seat and fighting to remain still long enough to get a grasp on something,  _anything_ , and eventually she feels like giving up. Clearly whatever had happened between her and Ani was a fluke; that Knight, who had listened to her, the guards — none of it  _meant_ anything, and she... 

She could feel something. A glimmer of light at the edges of her awareness, the whisper of the Force shining through someone. Hazel startles, and then breathes out with a rush of relief. She is quick to grab her staff and scramble out of the cockpit, backing away from the battered starfighter quickly. She has nothing to destroy it with, and so she will have to hope that she can find help and get out of this place before the Knights come after her. Turning towards that flicker of awareness, she takes off across the land in a run, the handle of her staff gripped tight. 

—

Tucked into the back corner of a poorly-lit cantina on Coruscant, Lacrimosa Pym sets her drink down in favor of checking her commlink when a soft beeping trills from it. The sound is nearly lost in the noise, but she is hardwired to hear it these days — and she likes it inconspicuous, anyway. Her dark clothing and heavy shawl might be enough to keep most of the clientele away from her, but she has no interest in catching anyone's attention with noisy, obnoxious alerts blaring out to everyone nearby. 

After a moment of casting a way glance around the floor, she brings her commlink close to her ear and lets the message play. It is short, clipped, and encoded. She plays it one more time to make sure she has the jumbled sounds right, and then she leans back in the booth and takes a long sip while she works through the code in her head. 

In the end, the message is simple and to the point:  _Mindabaal. Knights. No known survivors._

Lacrimosa taps her comm against the table as she tries to figure out why in the Galaxy they would go after  _Mindabaal_ , but nothing can come to mind immediately. There is not always a reason behind the First Order's cruelty, but usually with the Knights there is a pattern she can figure out for the next run; there must be something she is missing, and she studies her comm thoughtfully. Hasi might know something. She should have enough time to check-in with her sister and try to sort out what was going on before she pulled a team together. 

No survivors... There might not be anyone there waiting for her aid, anyway. She might have all the time in the galaxy to launch a group. The thought is bitter and malcontent, and now that she has a new assignment to focus on she simply cannot just  _sit here_. Lacrimosa drains her glass and rises to leave, dispatching a quick message to her second to let him know that she'll be dragging him out on another mission soon. 

When he responds, it's moments later and laced with sarcasm. 

_Isn't there always?_

She sighs. Yes, there is always. What she would give to blast the entire First Order out of the sky on a whim; it would make her life so much easier and significantly less harried. And so many innocents would be free of suffering. 

 _Just start scrambling a team_ , she replies curtly, pulling her hood up over her head as she weaves through the cantina and makes for the door. She doesn't have time to bicker with him; she has a Senator to track down. 

—

Hazel finds herself standing at the edge of a row of mining caves, at a loss. It wasn't  _too_ far of a walk, but it was a bit of a hike and she is exhausted and just about out of hope at this point. She has no idea if what she sensed was really  _life_ or not; maybe it was just these... these _rocks_ , or something in the caves, and whatever it was wouldn't be any use to her at all. Maybe she had just plodded her way across this barren planet for  _nothing_ but her own doom. How long would it take the Knights to find her ship again? And how much of the scant time that she had was wasted just to get to a bunch of  _caves_?

She kicks a small pebble down into the darkness of one with a quiet scream, something withering and angry erupting in her chest. She hadn't asked for this. She never wanted anything like this, and now she is stranded on a kriffing dustball with a bunch of maniacs after her and  _strangers_ depending on her and she is  _trying_ so hard to stay calm and centered and focused so the the Force can move through her, or some _nonsense_ , but it is  _so hard_ to be calm when her entire life has imploded—

She kicks another rocker, harder, and is about to march into the kriffing cave to find out what had pulled her here when a sound bursts out of the cave in front of her. Hazel freezes, staring, and watches with wonderment as someone comes crawling  _out_ of it. They are slender and foreign, draped in sandy unshapely robes, and when they straighten up Hazel is met with— blue. Dark blue hair cropped to the chin and a smooth, pale blue skin-tone that is unlike anything she has ever seen on Jakku. Hazel stares at the girl as she straightens up and shakes dust from her hair, looking startlingly unsurprised by Hazel's presence there. 

"You're too late, girly," she says without preamble, hitching a satchel over her shoulder. "We already got dibs on these crystals." 

"I-  _What?_ " Hazel sputters, taken off guard, and watches warily as the girl moves to step around her. Hazel has no choice but to turn and trot after her as she starts to head off, saying quickly, "Wait, hold on— I need help, I'm not here for crystals!"

The stranger glances over her shoulder at Hazel, eyeing her with dark eyes, and then she stops and turns to regard her fully. She crosses her arms, no-nonsense, and asks bluntly, "If you aren't here for Tasar crystals, what the kark are you doing here? There isn't anything else on the Galaxy-forsaken planet." 

"I..." Hazel trails off and abruptly realizes that she has no idea who this is,  _where_ this is, or if she can trust this stranger. She also doesn't have much of.a choice, though, so she sucks in a breath and then says, "I'm running from the Order, and I crashed here and don't know how to get off..." 

The girl's eyes widen slightly and then narrow into contemplative slits. She chews her lower lip, thoughtful, and then she gives a sharp dip of her head and holds out a hand. "Rosalinda. Come with me, girly. I've got room to smuggle one more prize off-world today."

Hazel hesitates, and then slides her hand into Rosalinda's. Shay Hart is also a world famous smuggler, after all, and so little distinguished the smugglers from the scavengers of the world. "Hazel. Please, I'm trying to get back into contact with my friends. I just need to get to a less... empty planet." 

The Pantoran nods, turning back towards the direction she was walking before. "Don't worry. Your friends in the Resistance, I take it? Lucky for you, my next meeting is on friendly territory for you. You can hitch a ride, maybe tell your friends how helpful I was." She winks and then starts walking again, this time waiting for Hazel to follow in step with her. "So, Hazel, why don't you tell me what the Order is after you for? I love a good tale."

Despite herself, Hazel laughs. "It really isn't much of a tale. I barely knew about any of it until... Well, a day or two ago."

"A day or two, and already a fugitive! How exciting," Rosalinda chirps, shooting a thoughtful look at her from the corner of her eye, "Tell me about that, little rebel."

So she does. 


End file.
